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Garden Graith; 



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SARAH F. SMILEY. 

AUTHOR OF "THE FULNESS OF BLESSING.' 



Truth has her pleasure-grounds, her haunts of ease 

And easy contemplation — gay parterres. 

And labyrinthine walks, her sunny gla!des 

And shady groves for recreation framed. 

There may he range, if willing to partake 

Their soft indulgences, and in due time 

May issue thence, recruited for the tasks 

And course of service Truth requires from those 

Who tend her altars, wait upon her throne. 

And guard her fortresses." — Wordsworth. 



New York: 
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 

900 BROADWAY, COR. 20th STREET. 



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Copyright, 1880, 
By Anson D. F. Randolph & Company. 



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■ ST. JOHNLAND PRINTED BY 

STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY, EDWARD O. JENKINS, 

SUFFOLK CO., N. Y. 20 NORTH WILLIAM ST., N. Y. 



TO MY FRIENDS. 

The pleasure which is unshared by others is but half 
a pleasure; and one of the chief delights of a garden is 
found in its peculiar power of permitting others to par- 
ticipate in its bounty. Yet this is at the best a limited 
privilege; and it has given me great joy to gather out of 
mine a higher and less perishable treasure, and to share 
it now with a wider circle — trusting that some of these 
thoughts will fade less quickly than the flowers, and that 
here and there a seed may fall which may bear some 
heavenly fruit. I shall be thankful indeed, if that which 
has been a recreation in the midst of more earnest work, 
can thus be made to contribute its little share of service 
for the Master. 

Saratoga Springs, November, 1880. 



CONTENTS 



o>*ic 



CHAP. 



PAGE 



I. THE GARDEN ITSELF 3 

II. SEED SOWING 23 

III. "CONSIDER THE LILIES " 49 

rv. WEEDS 71 

V. FRAGRANCE 97 

VI. POT-BOUND 119 

VIL AFTER THE RAIN 143 

VIIL THE LIFE BEYOND 17^ 



I. 



E\)t ffiarticn Etsclf. 



I. 

Wi}t ©artren Itself. 

"Lord! all Thy works are lessons, — each contains 

Some emblem of man's all-containing soul; 

Shall he make fruitless all Thy glorious pains, 

Delving within Thy grace an eyeless mole ? 

Make me the least of Thy Dodona-grove, 

Cause me some message of Thy truth to bring, 

Speak but a word through me, nor let Thy love 

Among my boughs disdain to perch and sing." 

Lowell. 

**And the Lord God planted a garden in 

Eden And the Lord God took the 

man, and put him into the garden of Eden to 
dress it and to keep it" (Gen. ii. 8-15). O for 
a moment's vision of ^/lat garden ! — planted by 
His own hands, who beholding all that He had 
made to be very good, and His fair world yet 
without sin, could in His holy leisure gather up 
the choicest of His creations, and group them 
in a garden, and so hand them over to be the 



GARDEN GRAITH. 



joy of His yet unfallcn children — showing Him- 
self thus in His first act towards man to be the 
giving- God, — giving liberally, giving lovingly. 
Has such a thought as this ever come to you, 
dear friends, as you looked at some exquisite 
flower, or on some tree of surpassing stateli- 
ness and symmetry — perchance the seed of this 
came originally from Eden, or this may be a 
shoot of one of those self-same trees beneath 
the shadow of which their own Creator walked ? 
Flowers have ever seemed to me an unfallen 
part of earth — mementos of Eden, and pledges 
of Paradise. Who can walk in a garden — much 
less dress it and keep it — without the thought 
of that garden being ever present as the great 
ideal? Look at Eve among her flowers; — giv- 
ing new loveliness from out her love — taking 
them delightedly yet reverently from the hand 
of God, and learning from "each something more 
of Him who surely made no meaningless form 
or tint, but with every touch of His forming 
hand put upon them also a thought of His 
heart. Behold her then considering her lilies, 
and finding as she looked and mused an inter- 
change of ministry — they, for her tender train- 
ing, teaching new joys of communion with her 



THE GARDEN ITSELF. 



God. And now that the innocence has gone 
forever, has this also perished from the earth ? 
Surely not ! And in all thankfulness and rev- 
erence — not indeed in Eden, but only in this 
little garden plot of Elim — I may claim both 
the unfallen flowers, and somewhat of that fel- 
lowship that made her bliss. True, I can not 
have here the bursting beauty of that new world, 
and her open vision of Jehovah; but not even 
for that would I exchange the glory that from 
the Cross floods a new creation in Christ- Jesus, 
and the blessed hope of all that shall be, when 
this redemption is completed. Dark and dread- 
ful are the shadows that rest long upon our poor 
world. But all along the shadows fall the rays 
of revelation; not faint and flickering, but steady 
as letters of graven gold; and however few in 
number, there are enough to spell out one 
soul-cheering promise, — ** SUBJECTED IN HOPE." 
'* The creation itself also shall be delivered 
from the bondage of corruption into the lib- 
erty of the glory of the children of God." 

So we will even leave the study and its dearly 
treasured books, and come out into the garden, 
where the voice of God is yet audible, and look 
and listen together, and learn what He has to 



GARDEN GRAITH. 



teach us out of His own handiwork. We will 
go down the hill into the hollow, and take our 
seats in the little arbor that encircles the tall 
elm-tree, and here with the garden spread out 
before us we will watch its growth as the sea- 
sons pass on, and gather up its graith^ as our 
more lasting possession. Let me beg of you 
not to despise through pride of learning the 
simple lessons of the flowers. Listen to George 
Herbert's thoughtful counsel — 

"These are Thy wonders, Lord of love, 

To make us see we are but flowers that glide: 
Which when we once can find and prove, 
Thou hast a garden for us, where to bide. 
Who would be more. 
Swelling through store, 
Forfeit their Paradise by theur pride." 

For myself I must acknowledge that many a 
truth which books have "never taught me has 
been found here; and that the lessons are oft- 
times as searching as they are ever simple and 
sweet. 

Here then we will be at our ease. We will 

* Qx'xx'Ccv— furniture ; goods; riches (North of England). — Wor- 
cester's Dictionary. Somewhat different definitions are given in 
Webster, and still others in Ogilvie's Imperial Dictionary. 



THE GARDEN ITSELF. 



drop all our stiffness, and relax the strain of 
abstract thought, and so rest and renew our 
spirits. Right welcome are you all, as you turn 
hither in your thought, to the green grass and 
fair flowers and the shadows of my patriarchal 
oaks. And that you may know it more as 1 
know it, let me give you in brief its simple 
story. 

Seven years ago this was no garden, but a 
wild and well-nigh barren spot. There was 
a steep and rugged hillside sloping southward, 
and on its brow, a little from the roadside, 
three old oaks, the growth of centuries, and at 
its foot this one elm; as for the rest, thorns 
and briers, wild grass and weeds. And so my 
joy has come, not from the placing of a perfect 
gift in my hands, but through slow triumphs 
over many obstacles — so turning at last desola- 
tion into beauty. Yet even thus have I learned 
most. My garden redeemed is a truer micro- 
cosm of the world of human hearts. 

Some of you will remember how we took pos- 
session — how as a sort of consecration of the 
spot to its new service, the thicket of thorns 
and briers was mown down, and then in the 
autumn twilight heaped high by the children 



8 GAKDEiV GRAITIL 



for a bonfire. So it was set apart, in hope that 
it mii^ht sometime prove worthy of the valley 
that smiled before it. and the amphitheatre of 
richlx' wooded hills that rose to meet the hori- 
zon. Ah, but none of you can know the care 
and toil that followed. It was so easy to plan 
it all beforehand in the mind's eye — the smooth 
little lawn of i;-rass that should front the cozy 
cottage nestling beneath the oaks; the green 
slope southward that should still keep a nat- 
ural outline, swelling here and sinking there ; 
the little path with its stone steps winding 
down the hill, past the spring and tiny brook 
to the gate, into the meadow; the clumps of 
shrubbery, the llower beds, and the border. But 
all these years have only imperfectly wrought 
out that plan. Set down in the midst of ene- 
mies, if I may so name the old inhabitants of 
the hillside, I have had to learn Israel's lesson, 
— " By little and little shalt thou drive them 
out." I did expect and thought it but reason- 
able to have my grass grow smooth and green 
at once. But I have reached the conclusion 
that a garden's greatest of all attainments is 
more grass. You smile significantly, for you 
ha\e learned some of \'ou at least, dear friends, 



TriE GARDEN ITSELF 



that the merely sweet and simple graces are the 
most difficult to sustain in your souls. Low- 
liness and meekness, humbleness of mind, the 
freshness of your spirits in the dew of your 
youth — these are Hkest to ''the small, soft, 
sweet grass." To be thus in your homes, and 
in your common callings, may seem to some 
things little to speak of; but there is nothing 
like unto it, for it is the only fair setting of all 
else that may seem more fair. 

And here I must digress a little, to tell you 
what I have been taught by this same grass; 
for in my little garden pulpit this was the first 
preacher. When I was about to sow the grass 
seed, there was no small stir in many circles 
as to the nature of sanctification. There were 
not a few who claimed that it should be at 
once both instantaneous and entire, and an 
often quoted phrase was this, "the eradication 
of the roots of evil." The analogy of nature 
can never be positive proof of any point of 
doctrine; still it often more than illustrates, 
and in this case it very strikingly confirmed 
the teaching of Holy Scripture. There was in- 
deed a definite day when I purposed to have a 
weedless lawn, and not only purposed, but with 



lO GARDEN GRAITH. 



the utmost care had it prepared, enriched, and 
sown. Certainly not a weed was there, and as 
the purest seed that it was possible to obtain 
was sown, all seemed hopeful. Soft showers fol- 
lowed and I watched with delight the shooting 
of the tiny blades. All looked prosperous. Here 
and there indeed some other suspicious looking 
growth was visible, but the grass would surely 
outgrow it. So I was busy hither and thither, 
till one day my friend from the cottage over 
yonder was passing and saluted me facetiously, 
"What a fine crop of lamb's-quarters ! " I was 
startled. Yes, there were weeds indeed, and my 
friends were even having some sport over it. But 
where did they come from.? Were they in the 
soil } In the fertilizers .? In the seed t Perhaps 
in all. At any rate there they were, and the 
wiser question was, what can now be done } 
After all, I said, this 'can soon be set right. 
No weed is so easy to pull up, and there shall 
soon be an end of this. So they vanished. But 
alas ! many a bare spot was left, and in a short 
time instead of the green grass spreading, what 
was this I saw } Purslane ! Roman wormwood ! 
sorrel ! thistles ! — a whole army of weeds. Still 
I persevered. I had them mown down. With 



THE GARDEN ITSELF. n 



my own hands I pulled them up. As often as 
the soft showers loosened the long roots, I went 
forth with my basket, and counted the slain by 
thousands. But always before another shower a 
thousand more had sprung- up. Moreover when 
all that I think were originally there had de- 
veloped and disappeared, the winds drifted in 
the foul seed from the roadside. The tall ox- 
eye daisy and dandelion came in battalions. So 
I saw that it was a question of unceasing vigil- 
ance; and have patiently continued, weeding and 
weeding still, these seven years. Now indeed no 
passer-by can easily see the smallest weed on 
that green sward; but / see them often; and 
though the task is easier, vastly easier, now, 
yet were I to give up my watchfulness a while, 
there would soon be a sad relapse. But more 
of this when I come to tell you of the lessons 
learned from weeds. I was to show you my 
garden first, before we began to gather up its 
treasures. 

The centre of my little domain is a spring 
welling forth in the hollow below the oaks. 
Some other day you shall hear its little his- 
tory also, and the lesson of its life. Its waters 
pass into the tiniest of all little brooks in the 



12 GARDEN GRAITIL 



short course of which is a sort of toy-lake. A 
smaller you never saw; but I doubt if any other 
large or small was ever the source of more hap- 
piness. Even while we have been talking, the 
beautiful Baltimore oriole has brought down her 
young brood from their nest in the elm -tree 
above us, to take their first bath, and they are 
frolicsome as children over this new experience. 
I can never tell what delight it has given me to 
watch from my balcony the birds at their bath- 
ing; coming as they do all through the heat 
of summer, not unfrequently by hundreds at a 
time, and for the sake of that clear, pebbly 
pool making this their chosen haunt, and fill- 
ing the air with their song the whole day long. 
It adds wonderfully to the beauty and interest 
of my garden that it is not a silent picture but 
full of busiest life. At almost any hour, I can 
catch the light of golden plumage, or a flash 
of flame, or the spread of wings so blue that 
they might seem little fragments of low float- 
ing sky. And always, flitting this way and 
that, can be seen the soft gray or brown of 
some little warbler, now and then a glossy 
woodpecker making the rapid circuit of the 
oaks, while the robin in spite of all his mis- 



THE GARDEN ITSELF, 13 



chief parades the place upon his feet, with all 
the confidence of an acknowledged chief So 
fearless are they that the little phcebe builds 
above my door, and the first flight of her 
young is often into my chamber. Once when 
the wild winds of autumn rocked the great 
oaks to and fro till the birds were shaken from 
their shelter, amid the roar of the storm a 
strange sound was heard at my window: they 
were tapping earnestly, entreatingly for entrance; 
and once admitted, allowed me to close my hand 
upon them without a struggle. 

But you can not sit long in the arbor with- 
out seeing another form of happy life. Look, 
one of my little squirrels comes rushing down 
the hillside at full speed in search of me. He 
stops almost at my feet, and resting his pretty 
striped tail upon the grass, sits upright, with 
paws folded easily over his fawn colored breast, 
looking steadily at me with those clear keen 
eyes. He will wait till he sees me absorbed; 
and then will creep stealthily up and push play- 
fully against my feet; but the moment I look 
up, off he darts with an affected air of the ut- 
most terror, taking good care however to have 
one last peep to make sure of my seeing it all 



14 GARDEN GRAITH. 



before he drops so deftly into one of his many 
round doorways in the turf Were I to tell you 
half the winsome ways of my family of squirrels 
I should weary you; and some of you might be 
slow to credit their doings. Ah ! little do peo- 
ple imagine the power we might have over the 
animal world, making pets of other things than 
cats and dogs. I can not claim to have ever 
learned one deep spiritual lesson from these 
little friends of mine; but the service they have 
rendered me is none the less. A certain dash 
and brightness about them drew my admira- 
tion at first, and next their unwearied efforts 
to tame mc won upon me till I returned to the 
full their fondness for my presence. Among all 
living things my little squirrels are to me the 
best pattern of unvarying cheer. The pewee 
grows painfully plaintive as the summer wears 
on, as though calling hopelessly for a wander- 
ing mate, and the oriole's coaxing charge — 
trilled out so sweetly in spring — ** Take care, 
Cherry dear; take care," grows at length sen- 
sibly shorter and sharper in a fault-finding note. 
Not so my squirrels. I never saw a dull, dis- 
pirited look or a laggard movement, while their 
varieties of sport are manifold. Especially do 



THE GARDEN ITSELF. 1 5 



they delight to join me in the early morning — 
chasing each other at full tilt down the long 
line of fence, or with a more steady, business- 
like air trotting incessantly up and down the 
winding garden walk. I remember often to my 
comfort that the great commission of the Gos- 
pel (Mark xvi. 15) does not stop short with 
man, but extends, as the learned Bengel shows, 
and Dean Alford clearly admits, to all creatures 
having life. So I consider that my birds and 
squirrels have solid Christian claims upon my 
interest and affection; while the intense happi- 
ness of their lives is a constant and beautiful 
lesson of God's great love. 

And now we must look at the flowers. We 
will leave for those who only see them from 
the avenue the few that are planted in front, 
where they struggle with the full force of the 
winds. Here in the hollow where we are seated 
in a sacred seclusion, is the veritable flower 
garden. And first of all you will note that 
mass of forget-me-not below the little lakelet, 
the trickling drops from its sides giving the 
needful moisture. Planted here a solitary sprig 
— as a little German exotic — the true poet's for- 
get-me-not, the warmth of this ever -flowing 



1 6 GARDEN GRAITH. 



Spring enables it to survive the severe winters; 
and it has spread in wild profusion till its mass 
of delicate blue smiles upon you as though it 
were the truer lake. There is no blue like that 
among all the flowers, and a lively French writer 
has told us that nature is very sparing of her 
blue. There they bloom unweariedly from April 
to November, ready to send out troops of little 
comforters and cheerers to loved homes and lone- 
ly hospitals beds. And next you will notice the 
vines — the Virginia creeper that drapes all the 
cottage windows, the bitter-sweet that mounts 
the balcony, the graceful Alleghany vine, the 
woodbine, and the climbing roses and the Cata- 
lonian jessamine that are clinging to the eight 
columns of our little arbor; and you notice how 
above the awning that tents us from the sun- 
shine the Virginia creeper has made its way 
fully fifty feet up the elm-tree and has spread 
out upon its arms. Ah ! but you should see it 
in autumn when it shows from the balcony like a 
crimson cross. Other and choicer vines are half 
hidden here and there, beginning lives of much 
promise for the future. But one you will find 
at every turn — our native clematis or virgin's 
bower. That little Gothic trellis near my door 



THE GARDEN ITSELF. 17 



is completely overhung with it. Few vines are 
so pretty at every stage. Its dark green leaves 
are peculiarly effective, and the twisting leaf 
stalks by which alone it climbs present a curi- 
ous study of contrivance. The buds just be- 
fore opening are of extreme beauty, while the 
long festoons of clustered starry flowers of a 
soft creamy white are next in loveliness to the 
orange blossom. Then follow the silken curls of 
pale olive green which adorn the seed, changing 
last of all into the gray feathery plumes which 
become it like the soft white locks of a^re. I was 
long in having it in perfection from not under- 
standing another of its idiosyncrasies. In the 
early spring you would think its long slender 
stems quite dead, looking indeed like old straws 
and being as brittle to the touch. So I had it 
all torn down. In one spot a single stem was 
overlooked and to my utter astonishment slowly 
and surely life made its way again, and greenness 
and suppleness returned, till it was a rich wreath 
of bloom and beauty. So now as I go over it 
in spring, touching it most tenderly in the 
training it needs — all ragged and forlorn as it 
appears — I muse upon the meaning of this and 
say to myself, "Who can tell but that in higher 



1 8 GARDEN GRAITH. 



orders of being where there is an utter look of 
death, Hfe is yet waiting to return, and to re- 
store all things. 

As we sit here we are compassed with foliage 
and flowers. Within the hedge of Norway pine 
there is a group of stately cannas ; and half 
hidden in the shrubbery is a large low mound 
of maiden-hair and native ferns, and in its centre 
a fountain feeding them with a weeping mist. 
As this is the "free-and-easy" corner, all else 
is growing in clusters and clumps; here a mass 
of richly marked oxalis and there a tangle of 
the so-called coliseum vine. Up the hill on 
one side is my verbena bed, revelling in a blaze 
of sunshine ; and on the other rests a broad 
crown of ruby and gold that shows afar off, 
even from the distant hills. By the way, no 
color is so effective at a distance as yellow. 
And now going out into the opposite corner 
of this valley, we come upon my little pleasure 
ground; where the grass is green and soft as 
in our dear old motherland, and the flowers, 
sheltered from the winds, and set in moist and 
mellow soil, grow after one's own heart. Small 
as it is you would be astonished at the actual 
variety to be found there. Here grow all those 



THE GARDEN ITSELF. 19 



lovely things that have but a brief glory, and 
then are content to sink back unnoticed and 
give place to others. Here too are the flowers 
that are sown and spring up each year — a score 
of kinds at least. And here too grow all those 
choice bits that one loves to gather up for a 
beloved friend — fragrant blossoms and leaves and 
fairy grasses. 

But I see that your eyes are wandering from 
this to rest upon that stretch of valley and 
meadow beyond ; and where the knolls swell 
upward to the west, flecked with rich shadows 
from grand old trees — and there where the pine 
covered hills rise eastward, and the road winds 
upward in the open space in a fine curve past the 
healing springs, and up to the height where the 
mountains burst upon your vision; and last of 
all that hanging forest southward that comes 
down with richly varied green to the very edge 
of the stream that you see flowing beneath the 
stone arch yonder — Restful, peaceful, and grow- 
ing more and more fair to the eyes that look 
longest : not overpowering, not exacting by 
reason of rare beauty, permitting one to think 
one's own thoughts sometimes, and not saying 
as some grand prospects do, "Look evermore 



20 GARDEN GRAITH. 



on US," for which reason one could not well 
live and work among them. 

Some of you from your wide domains and trim 
gardens may smile at the smallness of mine. 
But simply because it is such, and without any 
other pretence than merely to take the good 
and common gifts which God has given, and 
use them gratefully, it places itself beyond the 
proper range of criticism. It is not for display, 
but for enjoyment, and for true love of that 
which the Lord has fashioned so fair. 

And now we have lying open before us our 
little text book of truth, the motto of which 
we will do well to study silently in our secret 
souls, until we have made sure of our sympathy 
with our great Teacher and His ways of teach- 
ing us — ''The invisible things of Him from 
the creation of the world are clearly 
seen, being understood by the things that 
are made, even his eternal power and 
Godhead." 



II. 



Seen Sotoins. 



II. 

Scei gaining. 

«* Earth can not long ensepulchre 

In her dark depths the tiniest seed; 
Wlien life begins to throb and stir, 

The bands of death are weak indeed. 
No clods its upward course deter, 

Calmly it makes its path to day; 
One germ of life is mightier 

Than a whole universe of clay." 

It is early spring— so early that not a flower 
or green leaf, or even a blade of grass, can be 
seen in all my garden, that still wears its mantle 
of snow. But it is not too early to prepare for 
brighter days. I hold in my hands a package 
of seeds. These are the possibilities of my gar- 
den. In such little things, in things that seem 
utterly unlike those that are desired, in things 
that are almost as naught, are gathered up in 



24 GARDEN GRAITH. 



embryo all the beauty and the glory that I 
confidently expect yet to rejoice in. 

Let me look closely at one of them. It is a 
hard black speck, without one sign of life. Let 
me forget that I have ever watched this marvel 
of development, and turn rationalist for a mo- 
ment. Am I required to believe that out of 
this will come forth a plant, tall and spread- 
ing, with all grace of foliage, and then a flower 
with petals frail as gossamer and most delicately 
tinted, and that the only preliminary is that this 
seed shall be buried a while in the moist, brown 
earth .^ How } — how i* — how } — I ask but in vain; 
coming back to accept the simple fact that it 
has been. 

As I take up the little seeds, a voice whispers, 
" That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that 
body that shall be," and I sit and ponder the 
promise, "a spiritual body," ''raised in glory," 
"raised in power." And let no one tell me that 
the one marvel is a repeated fact in the past, 
and the other only an unproved hope. The 
resurrection is also an accomplished fact — " Now 
is Christ risen from the dead, and become the 
first fruits of them that slept." Our human 
nature became a celestial flower when it was 



SEED SOWING. 25 



fertilized from heaven. And we shall be like 
Him. 

I take up one of these tiny treasures and adore 
the wisdom of its Creator. That He should fash- 
ion one flower was a little thing to this — that 
He should be able thus to store up all its po- 
tentialities in such a way that it may be car- 
ried safely around the globe, that it can resist 
all the frosts of winter, that it might be trampled 
on unharmed, or even lie biding its time in some 
dark tomb for centuries. 

What lesson has my Lord for me here } What 
is there among the invisible and spiritual things 
that can be seen and understood by this "> I 
turn to His sermon upon the sea-shore, and 
I read these simple words, " The seed is the 
Word; " — that is, the word is like a seed. When 
a message from the Master comes to a human 
heart, how few understand what is wrapped 
within it, and to what it will expand if only 
received and nurtured. How few pause even to 
consider — like a seed, so small and unimportant 
in its seeming ; so easily lost by the careless ; 
and calling for so much co-operative care, after 
the great Creator has shown all His care in 
forming and furnishing it. 



26 GARDEN GRAITH. 



In His parable our Lord distinctly points out 
this analogy in describing the first failure — "He 
that heareth the Word and understandcth it not'' 
He does not see that it has Christ in it — and 
heaven in it ! Never could he be so foolish as 
to fling away the full-grown flower or fruit, but 
this seed, of what account is that ? And so 
Satan ''cometh and catcheth away that which 
was sown in his heart." None will ever treas- 
ure it unless God give with it a spirit of under- 
standing. 

And what a lesson is there here for all those 
to whom the Lord entrusts the sowing of His 
seed. Do they prepare the soil for it .'* Do they 
choose wisely both the time and place for sow- 
ing it ? Surely if the Spirit always guided in 
this, there would not be such waste of seed. 

I once had an extraordinary dream upon this 
wise. I was in the midst of my Bible class of 
young ladies, but instead of having a Bible in 
my hand, I had upon my arm a little basket 
of seeds; and passing from one to another I 
placed a few in the hands of each. But the 
hands were held listlessly. Few of them clasped 
the seed, and by the time I had finished my round 
nearly all of it was scattered upon the floor. I 



SEED SOWING. 27 



was about to utter some reproof, when suddenly 
this thought arrested me, It is / who merit re- 
buke, / who have been careless, / who am re- 
sponsible for all this waste I see around me. I 
have not even told them how choice is the seed. 
So I paused and said earnestly, '' My dear girls, 
I should have told you what I was giving you. 
Look for a moment at this little seed. It is 
very small and most easily lost, but if you will 
but keep it, and sow it, and watch its growth, 
it will give you by and by the most exquisite 
and fragrant flowers. And this, still smaller, will 
become a vine that will cover your window or 
some porch or trellis, giving you shade and 
sweetness. And this, somewhat larger, if you 
can only wait with patience for a few years, 
will yield you delicious and refreshing fruit." So 
saying I began a second round; and now every 
hand was outstretched to take all that I would 
give. 

Yes, these tiny seeds teach us deep lessons 
of the power of both faith and hope. All true 
life, in proportion to its elevation above the 
mere physical plane, has to be more and more 
lived, through looking at the things which are 
not seen; and probably the most of the seed 



28 GARDEN GRAITH. 



sown in us and by us awaits a summer beyond 
this present age: so that the very chief of our 
rejoicing must needs be ''in JiopeT 

And our little seed fails not to teach us also 
the necessity for the ''patience of hope." "The 
husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the 
earth, and hath long patience for it, until he 
receive the early and latter rain." Very rarely 
indeed do we receive any good gift out of the 
spiritual treasures of our God in ripe complete- 
ness at the first. It would be as difficult to 
put a full-grown grace into the soul, as it is 
to transplant a full-grown tree. 

All our hope for the multiplication and spread 
of good and beautiful things, whether earthly or 
heavenly, depends upon seeds and shoots and 
slips. It seems in nearly all instances an essen- 
tial prerequisite both of our full enjoyment and 
our wise use of these "good gifts, that we should 
be slowly trained through waiting and watching. 
That tree whose slow but steady growth we 
have watched, since first with our own hands 
we planted the sapling, what significance its 
size assumes as the j^ears roll on ! 

Nor can we forget in looking at these old 
giants saved from the forest primeval, that some 



SEED SOURING. 29 



one else has waited and watched. This slow and 
solid building up of the column of a great tree 
has a grandeur entirely unique in nature. The 
vast cathedral column was hewn slowly an.l 
skilfully, and it therefore has its majesty; l)ui 
these grew with only God's own hand to shape 
them, and He was content to build even slower 
than we build, with here a little and there a 
little. One little life cell followed another, and 
then one more little fibre slowly stretched its 
line from the expanding leaf down to the hidden 
root, and at last out of weakness it was made 
strong, so that the awful fury of the tempest and 
the wrath of the whirlwind are hurled against 
it in vain. Exquisite and almost perfect type of 
the growth of holy character, of the building 
up in strength and beauty, of man in the like- 
ness of God ! The silent, constant appropriation 
of all the supplies within its reach, the working 
of them into its own being, the converting of all 
things that touch it within, into its own great- 
ness, is the same process alike in the tree and 
\\\ the soul of man. 

The spirit grows by all its silent sympathy 
with the truth of God, by every moment's med- 
itation upon things above, by every secret fast- 



so GARDEN GRAITR. 



ening of its affections upon Christ, by every 
acceptance of that which He sends, and then 
most of all by every carrying out into act of 
the power of this hidden life. 

It is deeply interesting, in counting the circles 
of a section of some old tree, to note the varia- 
tions; some circles being almost imperceptible 
for narrowness, and some so broad that you fear 
almost to have counted two as one. As you 
count the outer circles your memory reaching 
back to those years can show a cause for this 
difference. The years of drought are the years 
of little growth. 

For the tree as for our spirits, it holds true 
that "a man can receive nothing except it be 
given him from heaven." There are surely sea- 
sons when one can make little increase save 
under exceptional circumstances — such as those 
of a tree by the riverside which shows little vari- 
ation. It drew supplies from an abiding source. 

Precisely this sweet secret it is that finds ex- 
pression in the first psalm, " He shall be like a 
tree planted by the rivers of water." They who 
live near the Lord, who delight themselves in 
His law and meditate on it day and night, are 
ever growing and fruitful. 



SEED SOWING. 31 

But I must return to my seed sowing. What 
certainty there is in the product of a seed, what 
perfect fidelity to its type. I am holding some 
now in my hand that I gathered myself the 
last summer — the seed of the Rocky Mountain 
columbine. From these glistening grains I fore- 
cast their future ; I see clearly the graceful ar- 
rangement of the deep-green leaflets, the cen- 
tral cup of snowy white, and around it the guard 
of sky-blue spurs where the humming bird will 
hang with quivering wings while he sips their 
nectar. I know to an absolute certainty that 
as surely as this seed reaches its full develop- 
ment, such will be the flower. I know that no 
possible freak of nature can transform it into a 
rose or pansy or forget-me-not. I* know also 
that it will not have those tints of gold and 
flame that were worn by its sisters growing 
close at its side. I remember how unvarying 
is the law, *' to every seed its own body." 

And when I apply all this to the heavenly 
seed, and consider that *'the word of truth" is 
the outgoing of the eternal personal Word, and 
that thus we are born of God, how sure a thing 
it seems that when our hour of true maturity ar- 
rives, then we shall be like Him. 



32 GARDEN GRAITH. 



I do not marvel that the Apostle John, pon- 
dering these heavenly laws as we the earthly, 
and his thought filled with this divine necessity 
of love to beget its like, should emphasize as 
he does the impossibility of failure where this 
law of life works unhindered — " Whosoever is 
born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed 
remaineth in him, and he can not sin, because 
he is born of God;" and all the more that I 
realize God's perfect provision of power and 
faithfulness, do I recognize man's responsibility 
for perfect trust and fidelity. 

Among the seeds that I am sowing to-day are 
some that will never bloom, and yet the self-same 
powers are in them now. Alas for the failure 
that is all too possible in the human receptivity ! 
It is this indeed that so powerfully stamps the 
parable of the sower and his seed, and that colors 
more or less the whole series of seven that Jesus 
gave at that time. The warning note through 
all is — '' Take heed how ye hear," how ye re- 
ceive. That mighty problem of the apparent 
free-will of man must await the revealing of 
some of the now secret things of God; but so 
far as present truth is concerned, the surest pro- 
visions and promises of God turn practically for 



SEED SOWING. 7,1 



each soul upon this, "I do not frustrate the 
grace of God." 

And yet in no instance is this perfect like- 
ness the immediate result of life. I shall not be 
dismayed when in the first two tiny leaflets of 
any of my plants I can trace little resemblance 
to the parental type. I know that it signifies 
infancy, not failure. And, moreover, there are 
instances in which I shall not see a failure, even 
in much unlikeness of the first flower. 

One year I sowed some choice imported 
pansy seed of assorted varieties. They were all 
carefully marked, and their first bloom watched 
for most eagerly. Unhappily they had been 
planted that year near the roots of a tree that 
sapped their growth, while it also shut out the 
sunshine. As one after another the feeble flowers 
appeared, they proved all alike — the old common 
sort. I waited till all had bloomed, — tricolors all 
of them, instead of the variety of twelve which I 
had planted. Suspecting the cause, I had them 
all transplanted to a rich soil and open sunshine, 
and arrested all further bloom until autumn by 
nipping the buds. Then at last they were true 
to their type. There was the creamy white, the 
golden yellow, the heavenly blue, the deep 



34 GARDEN GRAITH. 



velvety purple with its crimped border, and other 
tints and shades which can not be described, 
but which once seen can never be forgotten. 

I foresee some wonderful developments in ver)^ 
commonplace lives, when once the Chief Gar- 
dener transplants us from this poor soil, and 
the sapped and shaded spaces of earth, to the 
Heavenly Paradise. How will souls that here 
show little of beauty, shine out there, each in 
its own loveliness. 

And here I may mention an exactly opposite 
instance in which it was riches and not poverty 
that proved the hindrance. One winter a friend 
gave me some choice gladiolus bulbs, which I 
planted with special care, enriching them to the 
utmost. What was my chagrin to find as the 
tall spikes began to open, that I had only the al- 
most worthless red and yellow sorts. I confided 
my trouble to the florist to whose skill and 
learning I owe so much — a former gardener of 
the then King of Prussia — and he readily ex- 
plained the failure — They had reverted. 

A stranger watching me at my work might 
wonder at my partiality, why in my little pleas- 
ure-ground, I so heavily enrich the edging of 
the central bed for pansies, and as carefully 



SEED SOWING. 35 



allow no such soil to touch the outer circle 
bordered with gladiolus. Nothing in all my 
gardening has surprised me like this, the inti- 
mate knowledge needed of the character and 
habits of each plant. If any of you care to peep 
under the benches of my little green-house, which 
is however only the work-room and the nursery 
of my garden, you will see what I have pro- 
vided for their special requirements. That box 
of cherished soot is for my roses; that old lime 
rubbish for my cacti; and so on through sands, 
and peats, and composts that would bewilder 
the uninitiated. Nor is this all. To one plant 
I must give sunshine, to another shade; one re- 
quires moisture, another dryness. With the same 
care for all, I may not deal alike with all. And 
rejoice, O my soul, in that minute and intimate 
knowledge of thyself, thy needs, thy dangers, 
that constrains thy Lord not to deal with thee 
as with any other; — now to give thee more, and 
then to give thee far less. He has His plans, as 
thou hast thine. What if He even holds back 
all through the summer-time of life — as thou 
wilt do — some of His plants from flowering, that 
they may be the more ready for some day of 
days. Never question the wisdom of His will; 



$6 GARDEN GRAITH. 



only watch lest in any thing small or great thou 
should frustrate the grace of God. 

The seed first — but what next ? What shall 
be the preparation for all this beauty and glory ? 
How shall the tiny life be nursed ? What ar- 
tistic appliances shall be sought ? Shall we 
choose the choice china for its cradle, and bring 
it nourishment as dainty as a babe's ? The very 
thought provokes a smile of contempt. It cares 
not how humbly it is reared; and the flowers 
that are to grace the gardens of a king ask 
for their babyhood no more than if a peasant 
reared them. Nay, rather, coarse and common 
surroundings suit them best. There shall come 
a time indeed for the alabaster vase or the clear 
crystal to hold them; but now — well the shallow 
box of rudely jointed pine — yes, let the whole of 
the most unpoetical truth be told — the half of 
an old soap-box is by general consent their 
best abode. What wonder then if God stoops 
to sow His precious seed in hovels of wood and 
straw, and huts of peat; yes, and sometimes 
keeps them there till they have bloomed, when 
He gathers them for His Palace. 

But what of the soil } Soil is every thing, said 
the friendly florist to me as he saw my need of 



SEED SOWING. 37 



such knowledge. Yet all important as it is, the 
sources of it are most lowly. Worn out and 
otherwise wasted things — faded, fallen leaves, 
tliat mournful mound of death that rose so high 
last autumn when the sharp sudden frost struck 
down in one night the glory of my cannas and 
caladiums that were matching the stature of Go- 
liath, — buried all of them out of my sight upon 
the morrow: scattered over these, the ashes from 
my funeral pile of autumn prunings; and finally 
grosser gleanings from the pasture, where the 
kine gathered and lowed at night. Down into 
such rude details must the skilful gardener de- 
scend, and the daintiest lady in the land can find 
no wiser way. 

Out of disorder, out of death, out of repulsive- 
ness, out of ruin, is gathered the choice food of 
a new fair life that is to be. And one who sits 
sowing seed in such a soil, mindful of its ele- 
ments, can but start and ask, does God plant 
His seed thus t Does that grow all the better 
when it falls into a heart where disappointment 
and death have done their work } Can the dead 
leaves of our once beautiful things, minister even 
through dying to something still brighter t Can 
the chastening that lopped our too luxuriant 



38 GARDEN GRAITH. 



growth, and turned many a promise into ashes, 
can that give precisely the precious element 
without which our flower, that is to be, would 
miss somewhat of health and brilliancy ? 

And now must follow the days of patient wait- 
ing; nor of waiting only, but of unwearied watch- 
ing. It is no common care that such seeds de- 
mand. As an amateur, following as faithfully as 
I could, the best oral and written instructions, 
I saved not one seed in a hundred. Package 
after package of the more delicate sorts failed 
utterly. I had quite underrated the skill re- 
quired. The slightest chill, a sunshine only a 
little too strong, a very trifling excess of dry- 
ness or moisture, and the only reward of all my 
previous care was a dearly bought experience. 
The 'Mamping off" process is a sad one to wit- 
ness. It is not only in my garden that I have 
seen it; — the withering Sunshine of this world 
has laid waste whole fields sown for the Master. 

Nothing is more common among the unskilful, 
than complaints against the seed. Repeated fail- 
ures end in disgust, and therefore some of the 
most beautiful flowers are very rare; few being 
prepared to set themselves humbly and perse- 
veringly to learn. Consequently such flowers, 



SEED SOWING. 39 



even when once introduced into a neighborhood, 
soon die out — precisely as so many Christian 
gifts and graces have died out or become ex- 
ceedingly rare. We talk indeed very presumpt- 
uously, and without the least authority from 
Holy Scripture, about their withdrawal. We 
are ready to lay the blame anywhere, to give 
any account of the matter, rather than sus- 
pect, search, and stir up ourselves. How much 
of Christian activity bent narrowly upon the one 
object of seeing the seed spring up quickly, has 
failed of all final results, because the seed sowing 
was followed by so little nurture. What might 
we not hope for if, as carefully as a florist watches 
his flowers, each pastor and teacher watched for 
the souls for which they must give an account. 
What a text for such to study, — '* We are labor- 
ers together with God: ye are God's husbandry." 
Above all, when the skill is secured, should stead- 
iness be added. I never saw a fitful nature suc- 
ceed in a flower garden. 

My little seedlings must be closely sheltered. 
Having sown them, over each box I place, for a 
time, a lid of glass, and following no rigid rule, 
the quick eye discerns whether it be air or water, 
whether it be shade or sunshine, that is needed. 



40 GARDEN GRAITH. 



^^Such care over such little things! " I have often 
read that comment in the eyes of an unappre- 
ciative spectator; but I think I never heard or 
saw it from July to October. It belongs to the 
struggles of March and April, and the day of 
small things, which only the wisest learn not to 
despise. 

A few days of waiting, and lo ! my seeds are 
springing up. After all, how disproportioned my 
little care to such a marvel. I cast my seed into 
the ground and went the common round — to 
rise by day and sleep by night — and now, " it 
springeth up and groweth," I '* know not how." 
I sit speechless, almost thoughtless, before this 
secret of life; and where science stands confounded 
I bow my head and worship. 

Some of these seedlings are not only tiny, 
but, as the children say, "tinty." Yet small as 
they are, the time hastens when their individ- 
uality must be recognized. The true leaves now 
appear, and then follows that delightful task of 
" pricking out," in which each little plant is held 
lovingly in one hand, while the other prepares 
the place for its roots and then carefully covers 
them, and "firms" them. 

And now with v/hat care must the weeds be 



SEED SOWING. 41 



watched. How close they contrive to grow to 
the very roots of the plants. What skill is some- 
times needed to hold firm the flower while draw- 
ing away the weed. And how rapidly w^eeds 
always grow ! I sometimes wonder why. It 
surely is not their advantage as natives of the 
soil, for the majority of them are as truly exotic 
as our flowers. But in my seed boxes I can al- 
most tell a weed from its tallness alone. Was 
it that God saw fit to set such a type in nature 
of the rankness of evil in the moral world .-* I 
can but think so. 

And now in nursing my frail charge, I have 
one care above all others, to secure the growth 
of roots. I do not care to see my seedlings 
shoot up tall and slender. Holding them back 
from this by every known device, I encourage a 
deeper growth. Some varieties are placed for 
this purpose in small earthen pots, that the 
sun striking upon their sides may give them 
genial warmth, and so fill them with balls of 
vigorous roots. 

In my inexperienced days I said, " Surely the 
more soil and the larger pot, the better." *' No," 
said the florist, ''give them no more than they 
can use; the rest simply sours." So I find it; 



42 GARDEN GRAITH. 



and only when they have thus appropriated all 
their nourishment do I give them more. And as 
often as I thus transfer them, do I ponder those 
words of wisdom — ** I have yet many things to 
say unto you, but ye can not bear them now." 
"And with many such parables spake He the 
word unto them, as they were able to hear it." 
Healthy growth, however slow, is my own aim; 
and very sure I am that hot-house forcing is not 
the way of our far-seeing, patient Lord. 

But now at last, surely my little plants are 
ready to be set out, and moreover the gar- 
den beds are so bare, and the sunshine is so 
genial. 

Ah ! but take heed of those sudden surprises 
of late untimely frosts, and inure the tender 
growth slowly to the chilly nights. Let it learn 
by degrees what it is to have the rude winds 
beat against it all the' day, and the fiery sun 
scorch it till its freshness fails. Keep back — 
keep back — for the sake of growth; that is the 
paradox in man's garden and in the Lord's. The 
Bible is full of it: Moses must add to the forty 
years of highest human culture, another special 
forty of seclusion at the back side of the desert, 
but near the Lord, in order that he may do the 



SEED SOWING. 43 



actual work of only forty years more. So St. 
Paul must be set back, so to speak, in Arabia, 
for three years, before his most powerful preach- 
ing, and spend three years more in prisons and 
perils of the sea, before we can have his choicest 
epistles. How different the spirit of this age, 
demanding as it does, immediate and striking 
success ! How restless one is apt to become 
when it is delayed! 

The first year of my flower garden, after the 
planting of my geranium bed, I noticed a strange 
lack of growth; and as weeks even passed with 
scarcely a new leaf, while a bed in a neighbor- 
ing garden grew rapidly, I hastened to my un- 
failing adviser, the florist. — ''What are my ger- 
aniums about } they do not grow at all." With 
a half-amused look he answered, '* They are 
doing the best thing they can do, — they are 
making roots. You will see by and by." And 
I did indeed see. 

And would that I might pass on that answer 
to every Christian educator and trainer of souls 
— "■ Making roots ! " Do you see to it that souls 
do that .? — that the deep underlying principles, 
the healthy impulses and receptivities, and the 
cogent constraints of conscience, are secured 



44 GARDEN GRAITH. 



first of all ? Do you look after the roots of 
faith before the works that will follow ? Do 
you watch, as precious beyond all price, the 
forming- of those little tender working roots of 
love, through which all future enriching must 
come ? Do you seek to multiply roots ? For 
only thus can one find deliverance from that 
short-lived devotedness and intermittent inter- 
est in good works that are so prevalent. 

I have flowers among these seedlings that I 
shall not allow to come into bloom until au- 
tumn. Every little flower-bud will be nipped 
at once, that the stalk may gather strength and 
put forth at length the perfection of beauty. 
And ought not those who are so often discour- 
aged at the withheld opportunities of life, who 
are conscious of energies that God only could 
give, and know that His gifts are always His 
calls to service — ought not such to trust the 
Hand that again and again forbids them to 
come forth. Their time is not yet. Another 
and yet another little branch, and each one 
made stronger daily, this is the present voca- 
tion. Our blessed Lord Himself is the one Great 
Example even in this. Thirty years of waiting, 
saying to their end, " My time is not yet come," 



SEED SOWING. 45 



—but then three years that held the blessedness 
of thousands ! 

But the time of seed sowing passes quickly. 
Ere it be gone let me consider closely, ''Have 
I sown the seed of all that I purpose to have?" 
For as is the seed sowing, such must be the 
summer glory and the autumn fruition. Think 
and think yet again; and then turn to ask more 
earnestly, '' Have I forgotten any little seed of 
truth and righteousness ? Have I forecast the 
future— now in this life that is the seed-time of 
eternal life } " For whatsoever a man soweth, 
that shall he also reap He that sow- 
eth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life 
everlasting." 



III. 



III. 

"Consider tjje £iUes." 

"We're made so that we love 
First when we see them painted, things we have passed 
Perhaps a himdred times nor cared to see; 
And so they are better painted — better to us, 
Which is the same thing. Art was given for that — 
God uses us to help each other so. 
Lending our minds out." 

Robert Browning. 

I have received a beautiful gift to-day. Yes- 
terday in passing my lily bed I noticed the 
rapidly swelling buds and said to myself, In a 
week I shall have lilies. Last night the rain 
fell in warm, soft showers, and with the sun- 
rise the birds were all astir, with music that 
seemed more delicious than ever — singing as 
they only can sing who are uplifted for the 
time by the throb and thrill of a great thanks- 
giving in the heart. So I arose also. My first 



50 GARDEN GRAITH. 



step was enough. The lilies ! — they too had 
hastened forth. There stood in line the snowy 
Easter lilies telling over again in their full prime 
the same glorious evangel they had been sum- 
moned to symbolize those months ago. 

O pure white lips ! — how is it that ye seem 
more full of conscious life than any other flower ? 
What is it in these waxen almost fleshlike petals 
that has a human touch } Was there ever gold 
like this in the coronets ye wear half hidden 
in your bending blossoms, as not caring to show 
all your wealth save to those who love you } 
Art never yet brought together such coloring 
in such perfect harmony. 

But another surprise awaits me. My Pales- 
tine lily has also bloomed. Five scarlet bells 
are here this morning. What intensity of color, 
yet what solidity ! — there is not the slightest 
paling of it to the very tip of the firmly re- 
curved petals. It is royalty itself that is bloom- 
ing here side by side with purity. And O how 
marvellously there come to me in this sweet 
morning air — as from the lips of One unseen, 
yet ever seen — the words I know He uttered 
once, '^Consider the lilies how they grow: they 
toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you 



CONSIDER THE LILIES:' 5 



that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed 
like one of these." 

I stand transfixed. The message is for me, 
this very hour. My Saviour also loved the 
flowers. He pondered, as like unto us in all 
things, the lessons which His own creative 
skill had committed to them, when by Him 
the worlds were made. He taught us to pon- 
der them. And as I look and listen, the well- 
known words are taken up into a music I have 
so loved to listen to — would that she whose 
voice and skilful touch along the keys gave 
them such rich expression, were here now to 
sing it over them, — **And yet I say unto you, 
I say unto you that even Solomon in all his 
glory, was not arrayed like one of these." Again 
and again I hear the cadence of that soft refrain, 
"was not arrayed — was not arrayed — was not ar- 
rayed — like one of these — like one of these — like 
one of these." 

So I am looking upon a glory which man can 
never match — the glory of color and the grace 
of form, which the Lord of all converted to high 
spiritual service. And now my heart takes up 
the song that shall one day be sung in the new 
Paradise of our God — *'Thou hast created all 



52 GARDEN GRAITH. 



things, and for Thy pleasure they are, and were 
created." 

The loveliness that is the reflection of His 
love who made them, is the first thing to see. 
And yet it was not this alone that the Lord 
Jesus bade His disciples consider. He used this 
beauty to comfort heavy hearts. He was speak- 
ing to the poor. Why take ye thought for rai- 
ment } Behold what God hath wrought for flow- 
ers. They have no strength to toil. They have 
no skill to spin. God does it all. He surely 
taketh thought then for the garments of His 
own; and whether with soft silken folds, or scan- 
tiest serge, He will provide what He sees fitting. 

And doing this for the body, will He not much 
more clothe our spirits } The fine linen in which 
the Bride is to be made ready — the righteous- 
ness which we are to put on, even till we 
fully put on Christ, and stand arrayed in the 
lovely lineaments of His heavenly beauty — how 
can we toil over this.'* In what wondrous loom 
shall raiment like this be spun t 

O careful, anxious, troubled soul, if thou art 
indeed a new creature in Christ Jesus, how can 
He fail to clothe thee in garments of glory .? And 
so is not the sweet and simple lesson which our 



CONSIDER THE LILIES:' 53 



Lord gave over the lilies, even more applicable to 
our inner than our outer life ? Any dogma which 
relegates to man the formation of his own Chris- 
tian character, is most radically defective. It is 
His work, His care — for is it not written of the 
Bride, ''To her was granted that she should be 
arrayed in fine linen clean and white." Only from 
His creative spirit can possibly come the beauty 
that shall make Him say hereafter, ''Thou art 
all fair, my Love; there is no spot in thee!" 

And yet sometimes the teaching of Holy 
Scripture upon this subject seems contradic- 
tory. Now righteousness is the work of the 
Spirit, and through faith; and now it is through 
watchfulness and obedience and constant striv- 
ing; and yet again it is through patience in much 
suffering that we are to be made perfect and en- 
tire, wanting nothing. But there is no real con- 
tradiction in all these. 

For let me consider further what has been 
done for these lilies by human care. How close- 
ly I watched the preparation of that bed, made 
so deep and filled with the richest mould. How 
often have I loosened the soil around them, and 
refreshed them when the showers of heaven failed. 
How carefully each winter I spread the fallen 



54 GARDEN GRAITH. 



leaves for their blanket, and watched that no 
careless foot of man or beast trod on their push- 
ing shoots in spring. In short, how manifold the 
caressing cares I have given them. And without 
all of these they would not be what I behold 
them now. 

And yet none of all these things made one of 
them a lily. They were that from the first. God 
gave to the small seed and to the deep hidden 
bulb, the wonderful heirship of this primal beauty; 
and then He caused His sun and air and rain to 
work through its vital forces, and so to take up 
that brown earth and refine it, and assimilate it, 
that the flower which crowns their silent labor, 
is whiter than snow. 

As truly as the seed must follow on until it 
has fulfilled the entire type of its parentage, so 
we, that are born of God, must grow on and on 
with ever more of His image, till we stand at 
last '^ fulfilled in Christ." And all the time His 
Holy Spirit will keep silently ministering to us 
as the air, and. as the soft showers, and all the 
while the Sun of righteousness will transmute all 
earthly things to pure and heavenly ones, til] 
finally the Lord will come into His garden, and 
gather His lilies. 



CONSIDER THE LILIES:' 55 



Yet, meanwhile, we as workers together with 
Him are required to remove the hindrances, and 
to give all earnest and constant heed to this 
spiritual culture, waiting in patience for such an 
end as this. How well I remember as a little 
child, taking from one species of lily some of the 
little black bulblets that had grown in the axils 
of the leaves, and planting them. How perplexed 
I was over the unlikeness of the first year's growth, 
and even of the subsequent ones. Years are al- 
most decades to a child; and the five years dur- 
ing which I waited for their bloom, seemed the 
utmost reach of patience. Yet it had at last its 
great reward. 

But this morning, even in the enjoyment of this 
burst of beauty, I must also needs acknowledge 
failure. A little neglect here and there has some- 
what marred the effect of the whole, and had I 
given in the early spring, a little more enriching, 
my lilies had been still more queenly. So with 
secret resolve, I hope for still better things in the 
future. 

By the way, how much of our success depends 
upon a high standard ! How many wretched gar- 
dens and forlorn plants can be seen everywhere, 
simply because their possessors do not know their 



56 GARDEN GRAITH. 



possibilities. It were well to know our short- 
coming even at the cost of much humbling. 

A few years since, in this same bed, my first 
Japan lilies bloomed. One tall stem bore two 
magnificent golden-banded flowers, by far the 
finest I had ever seen. I was that very morn- 
ing, setting out on a journey to my twin brothers, 
and this seemed a peculiarly fitting offering for 
them. A detention on the way took me to the 
house of a dear friend, who I knew would fully 
appreciate them. The whole household was sum- 
moned, and were in ecstasies of admiration, when 
last of all entered the son who had just returned 
from Japan, who sat down very coolly to tell me 
how often he had seen such lilies growing by the 
side of a moat at Yokohama, and fully twice the 
size of mine ! Mine, of course, dwindled accord- 
ingly in all our admiring eyes. Had I not heard 
that, I should have been supremely satisfied; but 
having heard it, mine have grown finer every suc- 
ceeding year. I know the standard now. 

So too with my gladiolus: I had been content 
with small spikes a few feet in height; but when 
in St. Augustine, in a garden that for luxuriance 
I never saw surpassed, my astonished eyes beheld 
their superb heads towering high above mine, I 



'^ CONSIDER THE LILIES,^^ 57 

came home with a new ideal. It is hopeless in 
this climate to rival the stature of those, but I 
have often since had them somewhat exceed my 
own height. 

And precisely in this, it seems to me, lies the 
blessing of Christian example. Comparing our 
stunted graces among ourselves, or often with 
what we our own selves have been in the past, 
we have little thought of that which we are called 
to be. Suddenly God sets before us a living man 
or woman, -full orbed in love" as Bushnell says, 
or perfect in patience, or simple and sweet as 
only the truly great ca?z be; and we learn through 
these, the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
Christ. 

So of old the zeal of the Church at Corinth 
provoked very many. I doubt if any other hu- 
man influence be half so stimulating to our growth 
as the pattern of holy character. Indeed it is not 
wholly human; for it is also the most immediate 
and powerful ministry of the Holy Spirit, working 
through one healthy member upon all others in 
the same body. Even when such examples are 
only embalmed in their memoirs, a vitalizing 
power still lingers, as in Elisha's bones, and we 
rise up to follow them, as they followed Christ. 



58 GARDEN GRAITH. 



But to go back to a point already spoken of. 
Much of our care while directly causative of no 
growth whatever, may yet, in removing hin- 
drances, foster it indirectly in the most powerful 
manner. Such a lesson, also, I have learned from 
my lily bed. 

These Easter lily bulbs were the gift of a dear 
friend. I planted them in two rows, seventeen in 
all, to form a background for the other varieties. 
Two years after I saw one in the row nearest the 
fence, falling short. I gave it a little extra care, 
dug about it, and enriched it a little more. Still 
it pined. At last its leaves grew sallow, and then 
they fell off altogether. It was indeed time to 
investigate the cause. So I dug carefully down, 
searching for grubs, for mole tracks, for all thought 
of enemies. None of these were there. At last 
I found the bulb, sound but shrunken, held fast 
captive in the meshes of another life. A wild cle- 
matis had sprung up at an adjacent post, and I 
had allowed it to remain, that it might trail its 
dark green leaves, and wealth of bloom along the 
somewhat unsightly fence. But, though not shad- 
ing the lily, or apparently crowding it above, the 
roots below had crept along instinctively to the 
richer soil around it, and at last encircled the bulb. 



CONSIDER THE LILIES:' 59 



There were the multitudinous golden fibres, each 
only a slender thread, but counting as they must 
have done by thousands, and all of them closing 
round and round the struggling bulb, until at last 
it was choked. 

I never shall forget my thought as I held that 
little rescued bulb in my hands. It seemed al- 
most to grow into a human heart that had come 
to me for help, and asked mc why it could not 
have the life of joy and blessed service that so 
many others have. And I made the sad answer 
that my Saviour did: — ''The lust of other things 
has entered in and choked the Word," Yet still 
the poor withered heart pleaded, " But I know 
of no wrong thing in my life: I have no un- 
christian pursuit or pleasure." True, but other 
things, Jesus said; not necessarily evil things. 
Among these other things may be good things 
even, unduly cherished. My clematis was not a 
weed — not even when it did this deadly work 
of sapping all sustenance from my lily. It was 
only a good thing out of place. It was only 
a good thing grown wanton, and by its rampant 
growth stopping all growth in afar better thing. 
I could not hesitate a moment to tear it from 
its place. 



6o GARDEN GRAITH, 



Choose — and choose the best. Give room, 
give space. These are the lessons I am ever 
learning from my garden. Again and again I am 
admonished, Do not crowd, do not crowd. I am 
the more bound to listen to this, that the temp- 
tations to the contrary are very constant. There 
are so many pretty things to provide a place for, 
and the bare spots are so unsightly. But only 
by permitting this for a season can the eye be 
finally satisfied. Yes, it is all wrong — these over-^ 
crowded lives of ours — this attempt to get every 
thing that is good in science, art, society, com- 
pressed into the space of threescore years and 
ten. And so we have that great trouble out of 
our very joys, called *' social pressure." How 
many sink under its relentless exactions. In 
how many ways do our coveted conveniences 
become our cares, and our pleasures involve sore 
pains. Man is all the time finding out many in- 
ventions to lighten the burden of life, while all 
the time it is steadily growing heavier. Some- 
what of this is probably inevitable, and designed 
to teach us how finite are our powers. Time 
was when we could contrive to compass the 
interests of a continent; but now a whole world 
must be grasped. So far as this is remediable 



CONSIDER THE LILIES:' 6 1 



our only hope lies in wise choosing. In the 
struggle for supremacy the coarser elements stand 
always ready to encroach upon the finer, the 
earthly upon the heavenly. One has need in 
these days to act upon Luther's plan; and as 
our duties grow confused and clamorous, to 
bring them to peace and order through added 
hours of prayer. 

But while I am thinking thus, my lilies are 
looking silently upon me, and feeding me each 
moment with their loveliness. How fitted they 
are to take a high symbolic place. Nor need 
we be surprised that even the heathen should 
recognize this symbolism of nature, turning often 
enough indeed the truth of God into a lie, and yet 
even then holding, as has been well said, ** lies that 
cry after the truth.'* In Japan and other eastern 
countries the lily is the symbol of human purity. 
The lily of the Old Testament was also, as its 
very name — '* the white" — implies, a symbol of 
purity; but always of a purity divine, or at least 
divinely given. 

As the palm among trees, and the pome- 
granite among fruits, so stood the lily in its pe- 
culiar beauty and significance among the flowers. 
We might be tempted to underrate the impor- 



62 GARDEN GRAITH. 



tance of its symbolism from the fact that there 
is but one solitary mention of it in Sacred Art 
(i Kings vii.)- But we shall recognize the im- 
portance of this one, when we consider that the 
symbol was constantly before the eyes of every 
temple worshipper — for them, not to be read 
about once, but seen daily. A lily was the 
crown and completion of each of the two pillars 
that adorned the porch of the temple — stand- 
ing there not as supports, but as beautiful col- 
umns. *' Upon the top of the pillars was lily 
work; so was the work of the pillars finished." 
These pillars had no counterpart in the taber- 
nacle, and therefore must represent something 
peculiar to the kingdom. In the temple, as in 
the tabernacle, the work and offices of both Christ 
and the Holy Spirit are everywhere shadowed 
forth. If we ask then, what will be the great 
characteristic of the coming kingdom of our 
Lord, we are answered again and again, that 
it will be first His visible appearing in power 
and great glory; and also this, that ''when 
Christ shall appear, then shall we also appear 
with Him in glory." Christ and His Church 
will then stand side by side in the eyes of an 
admiring universe. These pillars therefore would 



CONSIDER THE LILIES.'' (y^ 



seem to set forth the symmetry and adorning of 
holy character, as expressed first in the life of 
our Lord, and repeated next in that of His 
Church. How subtly suggestive of this are 
these often recurring expressions, *' the one," 
"the other; " — ''so did He for the other." There 
was but one model. They were cast in one 
mould. One was finished first, and in that the 
skill of the artist had its complete triumph. 
The other was a most faithful copy; even as 
God has *' predestinated us to be conformed to 
the image of His Son." 

A lesson of exceeding beauty is given us in 
these pillars. He that is blind to it must needs 
be blind, but that is no reason why those that 
see should shut their eyes to it. The strength 
and lofty stature first impress us. Then upon 
the capitals is the net-work of seven-wreathed 
chains, to mark the intertwining in a perfect 
harmony of all fair Christian graces; like the 
seven virtues that St. Peter would have us add 
to our faith. The abundant fruitfulness is plainly 
indicated in the double rows of pomegranites 
that bordered the capitals as with close-set 
beading. Then last of all we see this open 
lily cup, as though the whole pillar were re- 



64 GAJ^DE.V GRAITH, 



garded as a vast vase to hold up its beauty to 
the eye of heaven. What have we here but 
the beatitude, "Blessed are the pure in heart; 
for they shall see God." 

That our whole soul should ever be open to 
His eye, to drink in His light. His air. His 
dew, and so give back to Him the fragrance 
of a pure heart and life, — for this He made us, 
and placed us where we might worship Him 
in spirit and in truth. That which we are in the 
sight of God is the supreme thing — far beyond 
all work, all fruitfulness, greatly as these are 
to His glory. And even as our spirits are fed 
by the vision of all pure, sweet things, so He 
deigns to feed upon that which He Himself 
creates in us ; and even for His sake should we 
offer our fervent prayer — 

"I ask this gift of Thee, 
A life all lily fair, 
And fragrant as the place 
\Vhere sera-phs are." 

And now I must gather my lilies. IMost cruel 
would it be to snatch them from this sweet 
sisterhood of buds, were it not that the sultry 
sun would ere long smite them; and so that 
their brief life of beauty may be a little length- 



''CONSIDER THE LILIES:' 65 



ened, and that others may enjoy them, I must 
carry them within. 

But what shall I place with them, where their 
stems stand so stately in this tall vase ? A 
little more of green is needed, and their own 
leaves, fitting and beautiful as they are, are not 
available for this; yet they give the hint of a 
true accord. None but grass shaped leaves will 
answer; and these must somewhat correspond 
in size. So I pass by the delicate grasses I am 
rearing, where the exquisitely graceful culms are 
bursting into airy bloom, as too small, too 
ethereal — and I go on to the margin of the 
meadow, and there among the wild grasses that 
spring up as very weeds, I find my treasures. 
Tall bending blades of richest deepest green, 
soft as velvet, bearing aloft their paler plumes, — 
those are perfect in their adaptation. The lilies 
and the grass of the field, clothed both of them 
by God — how fittingly they stand together, even 
as He has linked them in His Word. 

What a delight to group them thus ! What 
a strange satisfaction it gives to enter ever so 
little into sympathy with the plans of the Crea- 
tor — to carry out, so to speak, His preferences ! 

O if souls that are conscious of some creative 



66 GARDEN GRAITH. 



skill which they suffer to lie unused on earth, 
for the sake of service for the King, could but 
know how readily, and with what small expen- 
diture of time, many of an artist's instincts might 
be gratified, what refreshment would be theirs ! 
And if they who sit in humble homes, half cov- 
etous of some rare work of art which only 
wealth can command, could but see what cul- 
ture really lies within their reach, what great 
contentment would be theirs ! 

My study rivals royalty to-day. Whatever I 
may read of, or think of, this day, in the whole 
range of beauty, I can still answer with a smile, 
— x\nd yet it is not "like one of these." There 
are treasures of art here that were the outcome 
of no common gifts, some of them wrought for 
love's sake, and so ever doubly blessing me 
with their presence; since ever above that which 
the skilled hand made so fair, hover the beam- 
ing eyes of living and loving human faces. 
Among them is one treasure modelled by a 
princess' hand; but they all alike make their 
obeisance to-day, in the presence of a gift from 
the King Himself who, giving many good gifts 
for our common service, gave this as a token of 
love and remembrance. 



''CONSIDER THE LILIES:' d*] 



And now one final lesson sinks into my soul, 
as I glance not at the lilies only, but at the 
grass of the field that is not abashed by all 
their splendor. The choice thing, and the com- 
mon thing — one firom the Orient, and the other 
lifted up as '' the beggar from the dunghill " 
to be "set among princes" — truly ** the rich 
and the poor" here *' meet together," and "the 
Lord is the Maker of them all." They need 
each other. In this union each finds something 
to complete its own charms. Even so when the 
lilies of His garden are gathered, and carried by 
the Master to His mansions above, then will He 
delight to place together the prince and the 
peasant — one at length in the possession of the 
true riches, and the learned and unlearned — one 
henceforth in the wisdom that is from above. 
Passing wonderful, and passing fair, will be the 
grouping of spirits in the Palace of the King. 



IV. 



J 



IV. 



'♦To win the secret of a weed's plain heart, 

Reveals some clue to spiritual things." 

Lowell. 

"O mickle is the powerful grace that lies 
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities; 
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live, 
But to the earth some special good doth give; 
Nor aught so good, but, strained from that fair use. 
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse." 

Romeo and Juliet. 

A question has been exercising my mind this 
morning — Had Eve any weeds among her flow- 
ers ? On the whole, I think not; and in confir- 
mation of this I remember that Milton signifi- 
cantly omits this chief care of modern gardens 
from that which he portrays. He does indeed, 
with his fine perception of the fitting, assign to 
our first parents a work that tasked all their 
energies. Adam was not to lounge, nor Eve to 



72 GARDEN GRAITH. 



dawdle ; and it only indicates the high happi- 
ness of full employ, when he describes our busy 
mother as almost overpressed by care. 

"What we by day 
Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind, 
One night or two with wanton growth derides, 
Tending to wild." 

Well, if that were all / had to do, I should 
never, I think, get upon the verge of complaint. 
Weeds are the chief of my work. Indeed I 
sometimes think they have a peculiar tendency 
to grow in my garden; but I have heard others 
occasionally make the same remark. 

I have already spoken of the weeds that 
sprung up among the grass; but one special 
struggle in that line has a small history of its 
own — as that of a valiant among weeds. 

When I first saw this spot, there was growing 
beneath the oak trees upon the hill-side, a large 
compact clump of elder. This was cut down 
with the briers and burned in our bonfire. In 
preparing the soil for grass not only was this 
spot ploughed up, but in the change of level 
was much more deeply covered; so that I little 
thought of seeing the elders again. Greatly to 



WEEDS. 73 



my surprise they were soon up, feet in height. 
They appeared even to relish their own ashes, 
and throve under all the persecutions I could 
devise. ''Very hard to get rid of," said an old 
farmer. " You will have to dig up the whole 
spot again; there is no other way. Not a single 
root must be left in the ground." So to work 
he went with a strong spade; but on reaching the 
difficulty, not an inch could he strike the spade 
into those tough and crowded roots. " A pick- 
axe will do it," suggested another workman, 
**and it stands to reason that if you take that, 
and go through them inch by inch, there'll soon 
be an end of them." '' Capital," I answered, — 
"the very thing to be done." And so having 
watched the success of the first few strokes, I 
withdrew. But I was soon summoned from my 
study. The workman was in great perplexity. 
He could not help hitting and hacking the huge 
roots of the oaks. In fact the two had often 
become so twisted together as to be inseparable, 
and in not a few cases indistinguishable. Of 
course the pick-axe process was stopped, and 
all advice was now exhausted. 

As I stood there, fairly facing the difficulty, 
foiled and ignorant, I became aware that it was 



74 GARDEN GRAITH. 



another deeper question that I was in reality 
pondering. Had I always been able to discern 
between the good and the evil, in the deep, 
and ever deeper working of the heart ? Could 
I say decisively which were holy, and which 
were unholy ? Had I been able at all to judge 
the thoughts and intents of those around me ? 
And in the secret scrutiny of the counsels of 
my own heart, in my very intentness to root 
out the wrong, might I not possibly, all unaware, 
be marring the growth of some of the noblest 
powers that God my Maker had planted in my 
being ? And had I not known too, even when 
conscience gave her unhesitating verdict, that 
then the very efforts to subdue an evil, seemed 
only to provoke its utmost vigor ? 

Of course it was not long before another clump 
of elder reared its defiant head. It now occurred 
to me, that under all these difficulties, the only 
practicable plan was this: as soon as a shoot was 
up high enough to betray its real nature, and 
with strength enough to furnish a good grip to 
the hand, it should be seized fast, and a sharp 
knife thrust far down by its side, cutting it off 
as much below the surface as possible. I said 
to myself, I know that it is a law of all such 



WEEDS. 



75 



life, that it can only be maintained finally by 
growth in the air and light. / can worry them 
to death. 

No sentinel at his post, ever watched more 
closely for an enemy, than did I. It was a huge 
satisfaction to take this almost desperate case 
into my own hands, and to run my keen blade 
far down, till I could bring up inches of the white 
root stalk. Of course the next shoot had to 
start much lower down, and from a somewhat 
exhausted root. They were slower and slower in 
reappearing, and more and more feeble, though 
still they held out with a perseverance worthy 
of a better cause. But I made no truce with 
them. Instant execution was the unvarying sen- 
tence. Now, I suppose they are quite exter- 
minated; none at least, have appeared for the 
last two years. After discovering for myself this 
slow but successful process, I had the pleasure 
of reading it all in the agricultural column of 
my newspaper. The process was styled, ''suffo- 
cation." 

"Now give us the moral of all this in full," 
some one demands. Stay, good friend, fond as 
I am of tracing these deeper meanings, believing 
devoutly with my wcll-revercd Jeremy Taylor 



76 GARDEN GRAITH. 



that, " all things are full of such resemblances," 
cut and dried moralizing is not at all to my 
taste. Even as a child, it seemed to me that 
they half spoiled the beautiful fables and alle- 
gories that I read. Why could I not have the 
delight of seeing what it meant myself. There 
is a certain voluminous history upon my shelves, 
which, though sometimes referred to, is never 
really read, for the monotony of the incessant 
application of the facts, which seems always to 
say, **Alas, you are so dull, this would never 
once enter into your own thought." It spoils 
even the sport of a child, to have an enigma 
answered in the same breath in which it was 
given. 

I like, however, that pleasant social game of 
"Throwing Light." And truly it is something 
not unlike that which I am trying to do; giving 
merely a hint here and there, of the manifold 
lessons to be drawn. And besides, in many in- 
stances, the shadow, that can never be seen like 
the light, is the very charm that allures our eye. 
Now and then also, ''the ctiriain is the picture," 
and for those who can not see that, there is 
nothing to be seen. 

Still I may as well confess to having often 



WEEDS. 



11 



queried what the elders most resembled. I think 
it must be self-will, whereof truly the root is so 
tough, and the struggle with it so long. How 
often too I have noticed, that the few who hast- 
ily claimed its utter subjection, or annihilation, 
were not slow in giving some special proof of its 
vitality. Like the elder too, it thrives wonder- 
fully upon its own supposed death. That it should 
find its supreme delight, in trying to subjugate the 
will of others, has, I fear, no type in nature. 

As for the weeds that spring up among my 
grass and shrubbery, they give me a fair oppor- 
tunity of testing the value of Cowper's advice to 
one of his fair lady friends, who was to be kept 
from growing corpulent, by '' Jtow and then'' pull- 
ing a weed in the garden. Now and then, indeed ! 
But I dare say that was a euphemism. At any 
rate in my daily task, with much bending of back, 
and bracing of knees, and far reaching of hands, 
and hard pulling of arms, I have followed out to 
its literal results, a much older recipe than Cow- 
per's (given in the third chapter of Genesis, the 
nineteenth verse), prescribed when man left Eden, 
and had henceforth thorns and briers and weeds. 
If this command, which was not a curse, but a 
part of God's kind remedy for a curse, were only 



78 GARDEN GRAITII. 



more widely obeyed, how many much sorer things 
we might be spared. 

What need is there to invent such varieties of 
artificial exercise, when here is one all ready to 
our hands, which gives healthful play to all the 
bodily powers, under that prime condition of in- 
tensely interesting the mind. Is it to be refused 
as an old wives' fable, that the very contact with 
the earth is healthful ? Those who garden in 
gloves are not competent to decide this; but if 
a superstition, it is a very harmless one at least. 
How often would I like to prescribe this remedy 
to pale and listless young girls, who are not 
blessed with so wise a family physician, as the 
good old man who saved my life as a child, by 
a prescription of three words in plain English, — 
*' A flower garden." So I took my iron through 
flower stems instead of glass tubes, and found 
the blue blossoms of the gentian vastly better 
than its brown, bitter roots. 

Can you wonder th^n, that I have sometimes 
pictured to myself a garden sanitarium, where 
weary brain workers, and especially clergymen 
threatened with a break down of health, might 
resort .'' I would have them marched forth every 
morning, a little before sunrise, armed with all 



WEEDS. 79 



manner of peaceful weapons. How delightful to 
watch the result! to see the vigorous wielding 
of the ''Excelsior weeding hook," issue in the 
more powerful grappling with great moral evils; 
and the hand well exercised with a digging fork, 
turn to all the more masterly pose of the pen. 
The more stately and dignified, who like not to 
stoop, might push the scuffle-hoe along the walks. 
The orator should sustain the energies of ges- 
ture, by swinging a scythe; while some more 
gentle spirits might trundle the lawn-mower and 
draw the spring-rake. Some warlike spirits might 
possibly learn that neither a literal nor metaphor- 
ical garden, is any proper place for swords and 
spears ; and without waiting for the millennium 
to turn theirs into ploughshares and pruning- 
hooks, would find the weapons of their warfare 
all the more mighty. 

However, to go back to my weeds, I do not 
find my chief trouble with the large or clearly 
defined weeds of the loose soil. I am most dis- 
comfited by the little straggling leaves here and 
there in the green sward, on the hill-side, where 
I do not aim to keep it closely shaven. Some of 
them are so weak as not to give a stem for lever- 
age. The yarrow with its crimps and curls looks 



8o GARDEN GRAITH, 



even pretty for a time; till you become aware of 
its spreading far and wide, and growing coarse 
withal. The plantain too — well who knows but 
there may be a grain of truth in the old tradi- 
tion that spares it for the sake of the toads, those 
busy welcome helpers of youi toil, the weeders 
of the insect world; at any rate the birds will 
delight to peck its seeds; but at last the '* much- 
ness " of it becomes the question. 

And then the chickweed that begs permission 
to hide itself under your tall caladiums, and 
creep modestly under the eaves of the cottage — 
it seems too small to make an enemy of; — ^and 
will not your little friends near by need some of 
it for their canary-birds .'' 

And then the sorrel; — why you have to deal 
with it almost leaf by leaf However, I have 
learned at last a better way for that. I dis- 
covered that its acid shoots were the natural 
and necessary expression of a sour soil, and that 
in this case it did not suffice to battle with 
the roots. So I had the ashes of my wood fire 
carefully sifted over every spot where it grew, 
and the sorrel has ceased to spring up, giving 
place to the sweet grass. 

One can not help moralizing a little over said 



WEEDS. 81 



sorrel. It is so exactly like a sour temper — or 
rather the sour looks and sharp words that be- 
tray their soil, and that head up finally in such 
a dreary discontent with all men, and all things. 

Who are the freest from this } They who have 
suffered, and have had their sorrow sanctified. 
You may be almost confident that those who in 
mature life are the habitually cheerful and even 
buoyant, are they who have known most of trial, 
or suffered most of wrong-. They have been 
sweetened as with ashes ! Such rare sweetness 
of spirit have I sometimes seen among the former 
slaves of this land, as well as among the poor- 
est peasantry of other shores. I have seen it too 
where few knew the secret sorrow of the life. 

To lose the wise use of such disappointment 
and trial as God permits in our lives, is one of 
the greatest of all possible losses. Those dying 
embers and grey ashes on your hearth-stone, 
where the fire that warmed and cheered you 
has faded away — these are no nuisance to be 
put far away, but a treasure that can make your 
life greener and brighter. The waste and de- 
spised things that are hurried out of our sight 
are precisely the things we need. 

I think I have learned at last to utilize every 



S2 GARDEN GRAITH. 



thing in my garden. Not an old bone, or husk 
is there, that is not to be counted as treasure 
instead of trash; just as I truly believe that 
nothing is permitted to enter our lives, that may 
not in some way work together for good; al- 
though every thing depends upon our trustfully 
accepting and wisely using it. 

I may as well confess that I find a positive 
pleasure in the basket of weeds I secure in a 
morning's round. Like a miser I hoard up every 
leaf and stalk, and even the faded flowers from 
my vases, having learned the power of littles. 
If you wish to peep behind the curtain, you can 
pass along that screen of sweet-peas at the end 
of my garden, and outside of them behold the 
bank in which I keep my gold dust, making daily 
some deposit or other. This very day stronger 
arms than mine have turned it all over, scattered 
a few ashes through it, and shaping it somewhat 
comely, have covered it with fresh earth that 
the sun may not waste its rich juices, and gar- 
nished it finally with the grass shearings, that it 
may not offend the prying eye. By next spring 
it will be perfect mould. These flowers and 
shrubs hard by, had no other food for this season, 
and nothing could be thriftier. 



WEEDS. %i 



A few mornings since, as I was musing on 
the vast difference between a flower and a weed, 
and the unsparing severity I used to the one, 
while bestowing such caresses on the other, — 
this aphorism suddenly took shape in my mind: 
— the weeds of this year are the flowers of the 
next ! I dare say some one will object, that 
surely it would be better if the weed did not 
spring up, and if all the richness of the soil went 
directly to the plant: that after all, the weed can 
only bring back again that which it took away. 

Not so fast, good friend. The weed is not 
made wholly out of earth. It draws still more 
largely its stores from air and water. Each 
plant is a chemist, elaborating the elements to 
its own liking and forming new compounds; so 
that many a farmer enriches his land by plough- 
ing in a harvest of clover, the soil thus doubling 
its fertility. Of course there is a great difference 
among plants or weeds, some being more skil- 
ful chemists than others. I was searching a 
chemical work but lately, for quite another 
purpose, when my eye fell upon this statement: 
" Different plants, and even different parts of 
the same plant, yield ashes of a very different 
composition. Thus the ashes from one ton of 



84 ga/;:d£x graith. 



pine wood gives of pure potash 0.90 lbs.; beach, 
2.90 lbs.; oak, 3.6 lbs.; common wheat straw, 7.80 
lbs.; dry straw of wheat before earing, 34 lbs.; 
bean stalks, 40 lbs.; stalks of Indian corn, 35 lbs.; 
t III sties in full grozviJiy yo lbs.\ worjuzcood, 146 

ihr 

Two things I gathered from this — (dear patient 
reader, do not take alarm at the statistical look 
of this page) — firstly, nothing was surer to im- 
poverish my soil than those thistles, the seeds 
of which rode on all the winds of autumn. 
Therefore the earlier pulled the better, and the 
surer one makes of the very tip of their long 
roots the better; secondly, I learned this: if 
they contained such choice salts, then all those 
thistles bristling around my lower borders, were 
so much booty in store for me. If left as not 
belonging to me, then I must of necessity take 
all their seeds as the reward of my indifference. 
Nor could I overlook all the torture to the 
mouths of poor horses and cows, that would 
follow from their being left to be mown with 
the grass. To the farmer whose perquisite they 
might have been, they were worse than valueless; 
and if he cared about it at all, he would thank 
me for the raid. Here then was a chance for a 



WEEDS. 85 



little adventure of a most novel sort. So, early 
the next morning, armed with thick gauntlets 
and my lawn-shears, I bore down upon the foe; 
and seized with the very spirit of conquest, it 
was almost exultingly that I saw them rise like 
Samson's slain, " heaps upon heaps." I douVjt 
if any morning's toil ever brought me a larger 
stock of vigor, to begin with, than did this ex- 
traordinary coup d'Uat. 

Then I went within; and having anointed the 
few stray scratches with oil, I sat down to med- 
itate in a manner most profitable to myself: but 
I fear the thoughts were too wide and wander- 
ing ever to be told. So I will leave each of 
you, dear friends, to think it out for yourselves, 
as I had to, as to how far we are responsible for 
the evils that are bristling around all our bor- 
ders, and as to our wise disposition of the irre- 
pressible thistles of life. There, is in fact, a 
theme large enough for a year of thought. 

The only regret I experienced, was when in 
glancing again at my chemical table, I noticed 
that the wormwood was twice as rich in those 
hid treasures. I have none of that growing at 
all near me now. If any of you have, do not let 
it go to waste, but learn the happy art of caus- 



86 GARDEN GRAITH. 



ing the self-same stroke to disarm the power of 
evil in others, and to enrich your own existence. 
Out of rough and sharp things, and even most 
bitter things, may the garden grow ever fairer 
and fairer. 

As in most human affairs, there come pro- 
pitious times, even for weeding. Not that we 
are to wait idly for the best time, only that when 
it comes, we are then to set aside what other 
things we may, and do our utmost. Weeds do 
not yield easily in a dry soil; and after a rain is 
the golden time for approaching them. How 
easily and neatly they come up from walk, and 
flower bed, and lawn. You work with triple speed. 
Nay, better one hour then, than a whole day when 
all is parched. The soil is left so firm and tidy 
now, that the very definiteness of the work is 
delightful. "Oh!" I say to myself, as I follow 
up the soft showers, getting a grip then on many 
a weed that has escaped me hitherto — "oh! let 
me use even thus every tendering visitation of the 
Spirit." 

Do we not all know that there come seasons 
in our lives, when the work of sanctification may 
be set further on in a day, than in weeks of the 
common course of things } What a ready yield- 



WEEDS 87 



ing up is there then of that which is seen to be 
evil; what righting and readjusting of the life. 
When such seasons come for my garden, I drop 
every thing but duties, and devote myself to this 
work. And well were it for our souls if we would 
thus turn aside, as God sends the favoring season, 
to discern and judge ourselves, and to put away 
from us all, from the greatest thing down to the 
very least, that we recognize as evil, or even un- 
fitting for the Eye of the Lord. 

Among the evil growths in my garden, there 
is one however, which I dare not lay a hand 
upon. The slightest touch of it, or even ap- 
proach to it, would cause me weeks of suffer- 
ing, unless an antidote were promptly applied. 
I watch with wonder, the laborer, for whom I 
send, when a sprout of it appears, as he handles 
it with the utmost impunity — a power which few 
possess. Of course there is nothing about its 
appearance that denotes a poison; that it is such, 
is simply a matter of knowledge; or, lacking that, 
of most painful experience. 

Nothing, however, has been more helpful to 
me, in the solution of some of the painful prob- 
lems of life. There are certain errors both in 
doctrine and practice, which, judging from mere 



88 GARDEN GRAITH. 



appearance, are no more harmful than others, but 
the least approach to which is perilous to the 
soul. That such has been their practical work- 
ing in the lives of others, ought to satisfy us, 
without presumptuously proving it, by our own 
added experience. That a few singularly consti- 
tuted souls escape unharmed, does not affect the 
general law. 

In dealing with all such poisonous plants, and 
here the analogy is very plain, exactness of 
knowledge is of the utmost importance. To an 
untaught or careless eye, this poison-ivy {Rims 
Toxicodendron) might easily pass for the Virginia 
creeper. I have often mistaken it for a moment, 
as I caught sight of a leaf or two only. One 
point is decisive; the creeper has five leaflets, the 
poison-ivy only three. But having one such cer- 
tainty it is sufficient. 

On the other hand, I have often witnessed 
great alarm over perfectly innocent plants. I 
once met a lady who, knowing two of the su- 
mach family to be poisonous, had all her life 
resisted the temptation to gather the rich crim- 
son leaves, which make the other species so at- 
tractive in autumn. 

One other instance of needless alarm I venture 



WEEDS. 89 



to relate. I had gone for a day's excursion with 
a small, but delightful company, among the hills. 
After our noonday repast, in the edge of a charm- 
ing grove, I found the Eupatorium perfoliatum in 
bloom. It so chanced that one of our company 
was far from well; and so after descanting to her 
upon its well-known medicinal properties, and half 
playfully claiming its discovery as providential, 
I gathered the blossoms, and that evening pre- 
pared a simple decoction. Unhappily, before I 
had time to state the proper dose, my friend 
had heroically swallowed the whole of it ! That 
night I was aroused from my sleep by our hos- 
tess, with the rather startling charge of having 
poisoned our invalid. The whole household was 
already astir. In a moment I joined the anxious 
group whom I found slow to be reassured. I had 
again and again to assert, that as a botanist, I 
knew to a certainty, the name of the plant; that 
it was impossible for me to mistake any other 
for it, so strongly marked were its character- 
istics, and that, however unpleasant the conse- 
quences, she was not dying of poison. Hap- 
pily the affair ended the next morning in much 
merry laughter, and even the hearty approval 
of the physician, though that plant has since 



90 GARDEN GRAi'TH. 



been known to some of us, as '^ the providential 
boneset." I may as well add, however, lest some 
one should copy my experiment, that during that 
night I renounced forever the office of an ama- 
teur medical adviser, even in herbs ! 

But it has often since come to my help in this 
way. There are nice distinctions between truth 
and error, upon which quite as much may turn 
for moral health or disease. Those who have 
not an accurate knowledge of the often minute, 
but no less certain distinctions, should never tam- 
per with their doubts, and should bow humbly to 
the authority of those who have the requisite 
skill, but who can not always make their nice 
criteria clear to others. 

For instance I have never extended my botan- 
ical researches to fungi. Consequently unable to 
detect to a certainty a poisonous mushroom, they 
are never served upon my table, until sent for 
examination, one by one, to a quick-eyed Eng- 
lishman, who usually rejects two or three that 
might have brought death into the pot. He 
knew himself, but not scientifically; and there- 
fore could not teach me to know. 

Often it is not the doctrine itself, but the pe- 
culiar combination in which it is held, that proves 



WEEDS. 91 

SO injurious. Combined with but a little error it 
may become quite another thing. Nay, further, 
the very proportions of truth may be so changed, 
as to result in grave or even deadly error. Here 
also Nature is close at hand with her wonderful 
analogies. Listen only to this passage from the 
Duke of Argyll's ''Reign of Law." 

" How delicate these relations are, and how 
tremendous are the issues depending on their 
management, may be conceived from this single 
fact, that the same elements combined in one 
proportion are sometimes a nutritious food or a 
grateful stimulant, soothing and sustaining the 
powers of life; whilst combined in another pro- 
portion, they may be a deadly poison, paralysing 
the heart, and carrying agony along every nerve 
and fibre of the animal frame. This is no mere 
theoretical possibility. It is actually the relation 
for example, in which two well-known substances 
stand to each other — Tea and Strychnia. The act- 
ive principles of these two substances, ' Theine ' 
and * Strychnine ' are identical as far as their ele- 
ments are concerned, and differ from each other 
only in the proportions in which they are com- 
bined. Such is the power of numbers in the lab- 
oratory of nature." 



92 GARDEN GRAITH. 



The balancing of truth may be then of mighty 
moment. And may not the neglect of this ac- 
count in part for the frequent rejection of truth 
which yet is most clearly to be found in the 
Word of God. At some period of its progress, 
careless hands changed its proper combination. 
Some one used it in this way, and what it then 
was became widely known — strychnia or some- 
thing a little less deadly. Henceforth a sort of 
terror was attached, not only to that combina- 
tion, but to all its elements. 

To give but one example. Among the offices 
of the Holy Spirit is that of direct guidance. But 
other elements to be combined with this are the 
testimony of Scripture, and an enlightened judg- 
ment. Let the proportions of the latter fall but 
a little short, and at once we have fanaticism. 

Or to give an instance of truth and error thus 
combining — what doctrine can be more stimulat- 
ing, or more nutritious even, than the blessed 
hope of the return of our Lord in His power and 
glory.? And yet again and again, has a carnal 
thirst for earthly splendors, or the presumptuous 
attempt to know the times and seasons, brought 
this truth into disrepute. And yet whoever 
thinks, to go back to the Duke's instance, of 



WEEDS. 93 



giving up tea because strychnine is so nearly- 
like it? 

Sometimes, mere abundance may turn a flower 
into a weed. I could scarcely credit my eyes 
when I first saw the ox-eye daisy — that chief of 
outcasts — adorning the windows of Paris as the 
cherished marguerite. Doubtless there will come 
some happy time, when we can have many a 
now rejected weed for our enjoyment, as a fair 
flower once more. 

How lovely is my garden to-day — now that 
I think it is without a weed ! Yet, alas for that 
unhappy day when I trusted a gardener to help 
on my work, and found afterwards that many 
a petted little plant, and some of great value 
had disappeared. Only a wise and loving hand 
is fit to do this work of weeding. 

I passed by a garden yesterday, where many 
of the flowers were like my own. But oh how 
unsightly, when it might, with this one care have 
been made so pleasant. Oh, laborers together 
with God, in your spiritual husbandry, count 
it not enough to sow your seed, and to water 
it, but set yourselves faithfully, tenderly, to this 
divinely appointed task. All other care is wasted 
if by sinful negligence you fail in this one duty. 



94 GARDEN GRAITH, 



Take as your model the Epistle to the Ephe- 
sians, where St. Paul shows such skill in so speak- 
ing the truth in love, that he never puts out one 
hand to draw forth a weed, without the other being 
busy in helping on the growth of some fair flower 
that blooms beside it, and for the sake of which 
you see that it must go. The God of love and 
wisdom teach us all the secret of such heavenly 
skill ! 



V. 

Jragrancc. 



V. 

JFragrance* 

"There's not a flower of sprinjj 
That dies in June, but vaunts itself allied 
]}y Issue and symlxjl, by significance 
And correspondence, to that spirit world, 
Outside the limits of our space and time, 
Whereto we are lx»und." 

Mrs. Browning. 

Is there any thing so subtle as fragrance ? 
What IS it ? — we ask in vain. And while our 
philosophers go on through the ages, shifting 
their theories of light and of sound, here is 
something so unsubstantial, yet so powerful, so 
all pervading, yet so penetrating, stealing in till 
it seems to mingle with the very essence of the 
soul itself, that even science draws back not 
in perplexity alone, but as hesitating to be 
guilty of a profanation. She can contrive all 



98 GARDEN GRAITH. 



manner of instruments and apparatus to invade 
those mysteries of light and sound, but she can 
find no aid whatsoever as she enters this sanc- 
tity of ''a soul dissolving odor." 

Had it pleased God to make but one sweet 
smell in all the earth, that had been a price- ^ 
less blessing; or to vary it as He has varied 
color, that had been still more; but giving it 
as He has — varied to the utmost bound. He 
has imparted a unique element to this boon, 
as to none other given to our senses. 

We find not unfrequently a repetition of tints 
in flowers, so that one is like another; but we 
never find this in fragrance. Nothing is more 
unmistakable, and yet so almost utterly indefina- 
ble. Here language fails. Sounds can be meas- 
ured with the utmost accuracy through scale 
after scale, and we have a rich vocabulary to 
define their qualities. So too we have a whole 
regiment of terms for defining color, while art 
can imitate approximately any hue in nature. 
But the moment we enter the world of sweet 
smells, we have only a few feebly descriptive 
words, while the art of man is suddenly limited 
to mere conservation and combination. And yet 
this nameless something it is, which more than 



FRAGRAXCE. 99 



any thing else, gives character to each flower, 
and secures for it an abiding place in our affec- 
tions. 

I have been led into these thoughts by the de- 
liciousness of my study this morning, after I had 
arranged its flowers. Satisfying as the fair forms 
are to the eye, I can not sit and look at them 
all day; only now and then may I indulge in 
the luxury of a glance. But all the day long, 
as I read, and write, and talk with my friends, 
I shall carry within me a deep sweet conscious- 
ness of my flowers. Every breath of mine will 
be blended with their breath, and the very spirit 
of the flowers will pass into my spirit. 

Yonder in that little bracket-vase of a tailor 
bird upon her nest, that hangs upon the wall 
behind my study chair, is a graceful grouping of 
flowers so delicate that it will attract only quick 
eyes. It is simply filled with sprays of that 
modest flower which men call "■ Gypsophila panic- 
ulata," but which women call ''Baby's breath;" 
and then here and there through this sort of 
bridal veil, shining with its tiny silver stars, peep 
the long stemmed blossoms of the dear old- 
fashioned sweet pea. 

Ah ! poor little flower, with its plebeian fam- 



100 GARDEN GRAITH. 



ily, and its inability to suit the freaks of the flor- 
ists by growing double, or otherwise monstrous, 
it is yet sure to hold its place in cottage and 
palace to the end of time, or so long as it can 
keep that same sweet breath. Even its simple 
name is respected; and in all our catalogues it 
is entered without any learned title, and no one 
dare do more, than, now and then by the side 
of some more pretentious variety, to put Lath- 
yrus in a bracket. It is noteworthy also that 
in looking for it in the alphabetical list, you 
turn to S. and not to P. — the szveet having grown 
to be a part of its name, and no more a mere 
descriptive. 

Yes, little painted lady, in thy pure white robes 
and maiden blush, and yet more in thy inimita- 
ble breath, are charms that no ''Violet Queen," 
nor "Crown Princess of Prussia," nor ''Invincible 
scarlet," can ever rival. If I have put their blos- 
soms among thine in my garden, it is chiefly to 
show that thou art never- so fair as when seen 
in the midst of them all. 

I can not help a little doting over this dower 
of beauty, so free from all pretence, so unaffected. 
I remember some grand lady once sweeping past 
a group of flowers upon leaving my cottage, who, 



FRAGRANCE. loi 



spying this little pet of mine, trained modestly 
in their midst, exclaimed in a half suppressed con- 
temptuous astonishment: '' But what are these ? 
P-e-a-s ? " 

Yes, peas, my good lady, for all such souls as 
have had their spiritual senses smothered in silks 
and satins, and never knew what it was to lay 
a true and open heart against the beating heart 
of nature. But for others, for spirits simple as 
themselves, and as unspoiled from the hand of 
God, one of the sweetest gifts He ever gave us 
among His flowers, that never appeals to admira- 
tion, but solely to love. 

So one more look at your sweet faces, and then 
all day long you will possess me. Your reviving 
breath will float over the old folios and octavos, 
and when I am well nigh lost in the intricacies 
of dogma and the strife of tongues, sounding so 
shrill through all these church centuries, your 
fragrance, in the swift transmutation of such 
ethereal forces, shall become a music that shall 
accord with the pure glad melody of the simple 
Gospel of my Bible, and its angelic heralding: 
** Glory to God in the highest, and on earth 
peace, good will to men." 

Yet, what is this fragrance } What is it } I 



102 GARDEN GRAITIL 



can not help askinij;-, ai;ain and again, for the 
very wonder of it. What is it that is ever flow- 
ing out and flowing forth, and yet never failing ? 
How came it there, and how has it power to 
waft itself abroad ? Who but the God that is a 
Spirit, could give this well nigh spiritual power 
to the earthly substance of a flower. Oh, if it 
be that His hands not only made them at the 
first, but that still "in His hands is the breath 
of every living thing, and the breath of all man- 
kind," then somehow, from Him this fragrance 
flows. Is it His breath touching the flower, and 
making it so sweet, that He may have one more 
link between His Spirit and our spirits } 

How natural it is in the arrangement of flowers, 
to place the fragrant ones the nearest to us. As 
I glance around my room, I see how almost uncon- 
sciously I have done this. Far off is the vase that 
holds my gay trop;eolums with all their bril- 
lianc}'. h^ew flowers are more effective, when 
properly massed; but it is the eye alone that 
they delight. And my gladioli, with their fine 
spikes, and all their wealth of color, and exqui- 
site shadings and markings, every eye is sure to 
be drawn to them, place them where I may; 
but still they do not hold you at their side. 



FRAGRANCE. 103 



You greatly admire, you almost revel in their 
beauty, and yet you will never find yourselves 
heartily loving them, or turning to them for 
any ministry of comfort. 

But there, on the side of my organ, is the 
stock with its rich, far reaching fragrance; and 
beneath its heavy white clusters droop the small 
pale-blue bells of a clematis, with their faint spicy 
sweetness, as from their native wild wood. Fra- 
grance and praise belong together; and though 
I have done it instinctively, I can not remem- 
ber ever to have placed there a merely showy 
flower. 

And on my study-table, and on my reading- 
stand, and wherever they can get nearest, crowd 
the heliotrope, and roses, and carnations, and 
mignonette. 

Poor little mignonette ! dost thou know my 
little darling, that thou hadst been called a 
weed but for thy surpassing sweetness; but that 
having that, thou art indeed a flower, and needst 
never have a fear that thou wilt be forgotten. 
Fashion, that fickle mistress of ceremonies, guards 
even the entrance to a flower garden, and now 
and then strangely frowns upon her old favorites. 
But thou hast a life-long passport granted thee. 



I04 c.Uk/^kx gk A/til 



And what a niissicin is thine, hiding thyself in 
any little corner, read}' to conceal the failure of 
any thini;- else, never pushinj;- to the front; but 
purifyiui^ the ver\' atmosphere, they tell us; 
meeting;- an\' stra>' malarial whiffs, and even as 
a soft answer turneth away wrath, sending;- them 
o\\ their way disarmed of all their power to 
harm. 

So, lest from }'onder valley, some such foul 
breath should wander, I have set thee as a guard, 
beneath my window; on one side of the narrow 
walk, that leads past it, the petunias; and thou 
upon the other, nestling among my lilies, and 
helping to screen their roots from the scorching 
sun. And so your sweet breaths mingle and 
steal through my open window all night long, 
till in the morning the sweet-brier on the hill- 
side, masses her sweets beneath the dews and 
overpowers you. 

What a benediction is this fragrance of the 
early morning ! The vernal grass fills the whole 
atmosphere as with a shower of sweetness. And 
then the rose border. What intensity in those 
odorous buds of the Bon Silene, making the very 
spirit bound as though a message had reached it 
from heaven. And the verbena bed is all com- 



FRAGRANCE. loq 



passed with fitful fraf^r.'incc. Iwcn the pansics 
with their dewy eyes, are ready to rival the 
vif>lets now. Most especially do the fragrant 
leaves make this the hour of their choice favors. 
My rose f^eraniurn scarcely needs a finder touch 
to win her response, and the lemon verbena is 
freer still, with her bounty. Xor must the j^ur- 
plc buds of the calycanthus be forgotten. "Sweet- 
scented shrub," indeed, for let me hide but a sinj^lc 
one of these in some fold of my (]ress, and the 
spices of Araby will float around me till the 
eveninj^. 

And this prime Ijour of frar^rance, is the hour 
so many miss upon beds of sloth, never lialf 
knowin;^ what a beautiful, marvellous world is 
around them. Not all the long hours of day 
can possibly bring back again the charm and 
blessedness of this, either to the body or to the 
soul. 

It is likewise another world we enter, when 
in the stillness of the early morn, the Sun of 
righteousness shines anew upon the soft bedew- 
ing of the spirit. That is the chosen hour for the 
south-wind to wake, and blow upon the garden, 
that the spices thereof may flow out. If we only 
knew what freshness and fragrance are waiting 



Io6 GARDEN GRAITH. 



for our souls, would not more of us like the royal 
singer ''awake the dawn"? 

This too is the hour for all sweet sights, and 
sounds. How often do I live over again in my 
own garden, the memories of some early morn- 
ing hours among the Alps ! I see once more the 
shadows flee away, and give place to that crys- 
talline clearness that none ever see, unless at 
dawn. And now it is the Jungfrau that draws 
nearer and nearer, still bearing down slowly upon 
the spirit as we twain stand there together, till 
thought bounds exultingly to her snow summit; 
and now it is the mighty Mont Blanc, that is 
no longer a far off thing, but moves steadily, 
nearer, nearer, till the eye only asks a bridge 
long enough to span those blue Genevan waves 
before we might rest upon its peak. An hour, or 
even a half hour later, and the glorious vision is 
ended. The mountains are far off and mantled 
with mist. *' One might as well not go to Switz- 
erland at all, as to go unprepared to rise at four 
in the morning." Such was the counsel that gave 
me these life-long possessions of beauty. 

And shall I tell still further the simple convic- 
tion, that flashed upon my conscience, as I found 
my rich reward for the unquestionable effort .'' 



FRAGRANCE. 107 



" You have done this to behold the glory of 
the mountains, why can you not also awake ear- 
ly to look upon the glory of God in the face of 
Jesus Christ ? " Yes, truly the same law is found 
working in that higher sphere. It is in the early 
morning hour that the unseen is seen, and that 
the far off beauty and glory, vanquishing all their 
vagueness, move down upon us, till they stand 
clear as crystal, close over against the soul. 
Then does that Righteousness which is like the 
great mountains, stand out distinct in all its 
length and all its height, with range beyond 
range, and summit over summit, till in this 
clear and solemn vision, we almost forget that 
even yet we see but afar off, see but in part. 
But who can measure the holy elevation of soul 
that comes from such communing, before the 
day ! 

How often too, as in the early coolness, I have 
foreboded the intense heat of noon, has it been 
my delight to water once more, with my own 
hands, some of my most petted flowers; nor can 
I ever do it without saying over to myself the 
sonnet in which Archbishop Trench has so grace- 
fully linked the heavenly with the earthly. 



Io8 CARD EX GRAITIL 



"A garden so well watered Ivfore morn 
Is hotly up, that not the swart sun's blaze, 
Do\vn beating with unmitigated rays, 
Nor scorching wmds, from fiery deserts borne, 
Shall quite prevail to leave il baie and shorn 
Of its green beauty, shall not quite prevail 
That all its morning freshness shall exhale. 
Till evening and the evening dews return — 
A blessing such as this our hearts might reap. 
The freshness of the garden they might share. 
Through the long day a heavenly freslmess keep. 
If, knowing how the day, and the day's glare 
Must l->eat upon them, we would largely steep 
And water them Ivtimes with dews of prayer." 

To return once more to the subject in hand, 
I am incHned to beUeve that as o\\ the one hand 
the sense of smell must rank among the most ig- 
noble, however serviceable, of animal instincts, so 
on the other it may be developed into one of the 
finest and most spiritual of powers; belonging in 
this wa\-, only to the most highly organized be- 
ings. How little is made oi it in ordinary life. 
Even among the poets it is only now and then 
that you meet with any real appreciation of its 
delights. The poet Wordsworth indeed lacked 
this sense — and only once in some abnormal 
condition oi health, smelt a bed of stock-gilly- 
flowers which seemed to him like a vision of 



FRAGRANCE. 109 



Paradise. I have this day been looking over one 
of the latest and largest botanical text books, 
most exhaustive in its treatment of the deepest 
mysteries of vegetable life, — but nowhere through 
its eight hundred and fifty pages, so far as I can 
see, does the learned German author intimate 
that flowers are possessed of fragrance ! See on 
the other hand what a place is given it in the 
Scriptures, honoring the oriental habit oi associ- 
ating sweet and reviving odors with the persons 
of one's friends. The dying Isaac smells the 
smell of his son's raiment and exclaims, " See, 
the smell of my son is as the smell of a field 
which the Lord hath blessed : Thci^efore God 
give thee of the dew of heaven and the fatness 
of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine." The 
sweet smell that went up from the altar of sac- 
rifice is continually noted, and reappears in its 
spiritualized form in the epistles, as "the odor 
of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well 
pleasing to God." 

We are told that the various odors can be 
grouped and combined until nine classes exhaust 
the list. But surely whoever has done this, was 
strangely lacking in that acuteness of sense upon 
which all keen enjoyment depends. Who for in- 



GAA'DAW GRAITff. 



stance couKl classity or imitate the odor ot* an 
orchid ? C^ncc in my lite I reeeix'ed an alnu>st 
ro\al L;ift ot' its exotic blossoms. 1 arrani;-ed 
them, absorbed in this rare beaut\', placing- eacli 
of the ten species in i;i-onps b\' themsehes — \\\y 
e\e halt" daz/.led by these strani;e shapes and 
perfect tints. Init on returninL;' later to the room 
which their tVai^rance had tonnd time to till, 1 was 
hushed as in the ethereal atmosphere ot' hea\en. 
There was sometliini;' about it altetL^ether unlike 
this earth; so unobtrusi\e )'et so wooin*;'; now 
tar awa\' tor \'ou to search it. and then rushing* 
like a swit't breeze into the depths o{ yowv being-. 

Yes, I repeat it again, that fragrance more than 
an\- thing else gives chviracter to a tlower, and 
decides the cjualit)- auil Uviture of (.nu* love. 

And wduft name shall be found for that still 
nameless something — that subtle intluence — that 
atmosphere, as we sometimes call it, that ema- 
nates tVoni human spirits; and which is to their 
quiescent state that which so called magnetism 
is to their active state. There is nothing so akin 
to it as this fragrance of tlowers. 

As with the tlowers, it is not all who possess 
it. There are some who will alwa}-s win our 
admiration and homage, but who, lacking this. 



I'h'Af^h'ANCf']. Ijl 

do not satisfy us fully. It is this sweetness of 
spirit that is indissoluhly h'nkcd witf) love — wins 
it, and keeps it. Ifavinr/ this, all other merit 
need not ^o seekinrj for recognition, but is itself 
^our/ht for. You mir^ht pass many a spot where 
tiie rose and the vvoodl^ine and the jessamine 
flourish half hidden, but their breath is about you, 
and straightway your eye searches them out. 
You are walking it may be in some wild spot, 
and your eye is on the beauty of a winding river, 
or the majesty of the In'lls— when suddenly you 
start a little; another presence quietly claims 
you; ** Violets! "—Yes, they fill the air with that 
most expansive of perfumes — so that whether 
you shall turn this way or that you know not — 
and yet you will not go on till you have found 
the sweet treasures, hide themselves as best they 
may. Blessed be God, that the sweetness of so 
many lowly spirits refreshes our hearts in these 
wilds of earth. And thanks be to God also that 
the fragrance of a life may be in part preserved; 
that even as the sweet odors are taken from the 
flowers to give refreshment when they have 
faded, and to bear it to far off places, so the 
saintly lives of the departed leave behind them 
this chief of all their crifts. 



112 GARDEN GRAITH. 



I am specially reminded of this by the biogra- 
phies which I have just been reading in unusual 
number. Some of these lives had unmistakable 
elements of greatness, almost of grandeur, and 
were gifted well-nigh as marvellously by Grace 
as by Nature; and yet so it is that as we read and 
admire, no sweet breath floats out upon us — un- 
less it be now and then, when we see them 
bruised a little in the afflicting hand of God. 

But from other lives — less brilliant, less ac- 
complished, even far less known by the onlooking 
world, there escapes such an aroma of goodness 
as penetrates to the depths of the soul. Such a 
flagrant life was that of the sweet singer of holy 
songs who has this summer been taken from us.* 
A sort of spicy freshness floats all around those 
pages in which her gifts and graces are so im- 
perfectly embalmed; and the turning of each new 
leaf brings anew the stimulant sweetness of her 
life to our own. 

And the saintly Muhlenberg t — what a fragrant 
life was his ! The sweetness of a heavenly mind 
was the greatest gift his God gave unto him. 
Wherever the loving record of that utterly un- 

* Frances Ridley Havergal. 

t "Life and Work of William Augustus Muhlenberg." 



FRAGRANCE. 113 



selfish life is carried, there surely the house will 
be filled with the odor of that costly ointment 
which it was his rare privilege to break upon the 
feet of Jesus; and to visit his St. Johnland and 
breathe the Christ-like spirit of the place, is like 
bending over a harvest of hoarded fruit when the 
tree that gave it is felled. 

Alike among the living and the dead, this un- 
named power, that reaches you, possesses you, 
and refreshes your inmost being, bringing you 
blessed thoughts of God — this impalpable, inde- 
finable presence that depends not upon features, 
or bearing or speech, although it may pervade 
them all, what and whence is it but the nearest 
and most subtle partaking of His divine nature 
that our Blessed Lord can impart. 

Daniel had it, and even Belshazzar's queen 
with senses all dulled in a luxurious, selfish 
court, could but perceive his "excellent spirit," 
and call it "the spirit of the holy gods": and 
this same excellent spirit it was that led Darius 
to prefer him above all presidents and princes. 

How full is the Song of Songs of all fragrant 
things. A song of love must needs be so. The 
well-beloved is as "a bundle of myrrh" and "a 
cluster of cam[)hor." His "name is as ointment 



114 GARDEN GRAITH. 



poured forth." He cometh out of the wilder- 
ness perfumed with myrrh and frankincense and 
all powders of the merchant. 

Yes, blessed Lord Jesus, the best-beloved of 
Thine own, even so has the record of Thy life 
reached down to us; and there is not a grace 
and not a virtue, the sweetness of Avhich was 
not first embodied in Thee, and is still ever shed 
forth. 

In the great renewing of all things, may not 
this gift of fragrance — even now the subtlest 
of God's outward gifts, and ever pointing to 
that which is spiritual, become a part of that 
which is now signified, being itself spiritualized ? 
Surely when the bride has made herself ready, 
then will her royal Bridegroom say to her, '' The 
fragrance of thy garments is like the fragrance 
of Lebanon." 

"Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranites, 
with most excellent fruit; 
cypress flowers -with nards. 
Nard and crocus, calamus and cinnamon, 
with every variety of incense woods; 
myrrh and aloes, 
with all the chief spice plants." 

And oh, ye whom God has set in His garden, 



FRAGRANCE. 115 



not as the giant oaks for strength, nor as the 
tree that bears abundant fruit, — count it no vain 
caUing, though ye may seem the least and last 
of all the plants that claim His care, if still your 
life is a life of sweetness: and be well content 
to please your Creator by this blessed service of 
ever having a reviving breath to pour out upon 
the passer-by, or to fill the little sphere in which 
you live with a continual fragrance. 



VI. 

Pot=Bountr. 



VI. 

|3ot=33ounli. 

"Still uppermost, 
Nature was at his heart as if he felt, 
Though yet he knew not how, a wasting power, 
In all things which from her sweet influence 
Might tend to wean him. Therefore with her hues. 
Her forms, and with the spirit of her forms, 
He clothed the nakedness of austere triith.^'' 

Wordsworth. 

And what is the lesson of this morning ? — 
was the eager question of one of a small group 
of friends, whom I joined at breakfast — fresh 
from my work in the garden. It had come to 
be taken for granted that as soon as the morn- 
ing greetings were over, I should thus furnisli 
the topic for the time, which followed some- 
what naturally the unlading of my full hands of 
their freight of choicest buds and blossoms for 
each. She who asked the question — herself like 



20 GARDEN GRAITH. 



a flower among the flowers — will never again 
brighten my home and garden, as the ever wel- 
come guest. 

I little thought that spring when she looked 
so lovingly upon my lilies of the valley, that 
they would be planted the next year to open 
their blossoms upon her grave. But none the 
less is she still a part of my life; and the glow 
and fervor and brightness of her being, are linked 
forever in hallowed association with many of 
my flowers. I see that sweet face now, from 
which not all the cares of life, nor the mother- 
hood of many sons, nor all the strain that came 
often upon a heart, as tender as true in its sym- 
pathies, could at all take away the dewy fresh- 
ness and eagerness of a child. Her loving ap- 
preciation always quickened me in finding and 
treasuring these lessons from my garden. 

Her question was at once echoed by another — 
*' Yes, tell us what you have been learning new 
this morning, something, very plainly." 

I glanced a moment at the faces so glowing 
with affection and intelligence, and then made 
my brief answer — *' Pot-bound ! " 

There was first a ripple of smales, and then a 
merry burst of laughter, and finally a volley of 



POT-BOUND. 121 



questions as to what that meant; and yet before 
our talk was over, I think there were tears in 
all our eyes. 

That was four years ago; but it has all come 
back most vividly in memory as the same lesson 
has been reviewed this morning. I will cite here 
the fresher experience, and then supplement it 
as best I can out of that conversation of long 
ago. 

When my German stocks were planted out 
this spring, I reserved a few in small pots to 
take the place of such as might prove single. 
For the stock is almost peculiar in this, that 
the single flowers are remarkably lacking both 
in beauty and fragrance. In spite of all the fan- 
cies of florists, my taste persists in its preference 
for the single petunia, banishes from my pre- 
cincts the double geranium, and cherishes a sly 
liking for even the single tuberose. I will ad- 
mit that the rose is a great exception, and yet 
the English sweet-brier has its own incompara- 
ble grace. Not so however with stocks. The 
long loose straggling stems of shapeless single 
flowers, can scarcely be tolerated. For aught 
I know, there may be a natural state very differ- 
ent, but certainly those that from seed of double 



122 GARDEN GRAITH. 



stocks fail of being double, wear a most discom- 
fited look. 

This morning I found that all in my flower- 
bed were at last in bloom, and alas ! fully half 
of them single. So I turned to my reserve in 
the pots. They had been transferred once to 
pots of a larger size, but in the press of cares 
further transfer was neglected. They had been 
faithfully watered, but I had given them no at- 
tention myself. So now I found a sad failure. 
Compared with the others, set out so long ago, 
they were mere pigmies. Soon exhausting all 
the soil, the little roots searching round and 
round for food, found themselves thwarted at 
every turn by the hard walls of the earthen 
pot; and finally after crowding it full of hungry 
fibres, they could do nothing but stand still. As 
I turned them carefully out of the pots, there 
was nothing to be seen save a thickly matted 
mass of dingy white roots. The plants were 
alive, but not one of them in bloom, or even in 
bud. They were, as the gardeners say, pot-bound . 

All that is signified by this, can be better 
known by a glance at the more prosperous mem- 
bers of the family now blooming in my flower- 
bed. Only look at those vigorous branches that 



POT^BOUND. 123 



have shot out freely around the main stalk, and 
note how many of them are even at this early 
season loaded with those close-set, snow-white 
blossoms. No flower in my garden has such a 
style of massing- both its beauty and fragrance. 
I can cut freely from these plants for myself and 
for my friends, and they will thrive all the more. 
From these early days of July, on into October, 
past all the lighter frosts, they will continue 
this lavish bloom. 

The stock revels in the dews; and to lift one 
of those heavy heads bowed under their weight, 
all bathed and brilliant, is one o^ the special 
delights of the early morning. And all this is 
the measure of the loss of my pot-bound plants. 
Ah, pitiable little objects ! — starved in the midst 
of plenty, because only a thin wall came between 
you and fertile mother earth, — I look upon you 
with compassionate regrets. Never to you can 
I turn to gather the rich stores of delight which 
might so easily have been your portion. All 
those weeks of soft showers, and long refresh- 
ing rains, lost by you ! All these days of sun- 
shine, in which every thing" seems ready to leap 
forth for gladness, lost for you ! You have been 
losing, too, more than this, even the very habit 



124 GARDEN GRAITH. 



of growth; and now it will take much of pre- 
cious time to recover merely that; and then the 
sultry August suns will beat fiercely upon the 
garden, and with my utmost skill put forth upon 
you, you can by no possibility overtake your 
freer sisters. 

But as often happens to me, while holding in 
my hand these little pot-bound plants, my busy 
fancy clothes them with a hum.an garb. I see 
then not stocks, but souls; — souls that God des- 
tined for great growth and abundant bloom, put- 
ting in them richly the potentialities of this; but 
alas ! instead of making this their calling and 
election sure, I see them pot-bound in narrow, 
cramping, man-made systems of thought and ac- 
tion; instead of being set free indeed to flourish 
in the full riches of '' tJie wJiole triUJiy 

How often have I found the lesson in my gar- 
den, and the line of thought suggested by my 
reading, in striking harmony. It was only yes- 
terday that I was reading the answer of St. Paul 
before Felix, as given in Acts xxiv., and noting 
a point which the readers of our English version 
miss, that the ''sect" of the fifth verse and the 
''heresy" of the fourteenth, are the same in the 
Greek. Looking up the word once more in my 



POT-BOUND. 125 



lexicon, I noted how innocent it was at first ; 
coming from a root signifying to choose, and 
meaning simply the part that was chosen. But 
at last because it was a part and therefore not 
the perfect whole, it acquired a bad sense, and 
became that dreadful thing — heresy. 

For not only is truth a whole, but an organic 
whole; and while there may be but a few mem- 
bers of it whose loss would involve that of life 
itself, yet it has none so small that their removal 
is not after all a loss and a deformity. 

Every heresy repeats substantially the same 
career; — first a portion of the truth hitherto 
neglected is recognized; then follows its dis- 
location from the entire body of truth; its dis- 
tortion next; and finally its union with positive 
error. 

And then how could I but recall as I glanced 
over the ancient course of sects and heresies, the 
bitter bickerings that had polluted the most pre- 
cious doctrines; — how again and again men had 
grappled with the mere might of intellect the 
things hard to be understood, and never to be 
understood save by the devout heart and meek 
spirit, and so had wrested them to their own de- 
struction and that of many others. I remem- 



126 GARDEN GRAITH. 



bered how the pages of church history were filled, 
not with the records of heavenly fellowship, and 
therefore deeper insight into the things of God, 
but too often with sharp discussions and vio- 
lent disputes. And even down to our own time 
whether the few have met socially, or the many 
in solemn convocation, rare as oases in the desert, 
have been the occasions when the all-absorbing 
themes were the love of Christ, the power of the 
Holy Spirit, and our wondrous fellowship with 
the Father through His dear Son. 

Divisions and sub-divisions have failed to se- 
cure this concord. How often indeed do those 
who professedly agree, bring the more animosity 
into their remaining disagreements. Wherever 
there is great zeal unbalanced by wisdom, there 
the temptation enters to place the favorite doc- 
trine beneath the microscope, forgetting that the 
more it is magnified the narrower is the field of 
vision, and the more is there crowded out. Per- 
haps all truth may at times and for specific pur- 
poses pass profitably under the lens. But a fatal 
thing it is, not only to keep it there, but to mag- 
nify more and more, till the very little that is 
seen becomes dim and spectral. Such narrow- 
ness imist end in consummate heresy. 



POT-BOUND. 127 



Having- thus taken this long flight of thought 
(apparently as far off from my flower-pots as in 
those curious cases of associated facts given by 
Funcke in his inimitable '* St. Paulus zu Wasser 
und zu Land"), I come back to my text, and the 
old meaning of heresy in the New Testament, as 
simply a sect or division. Thus we have as the 
English rendering of the word — ''the sect of the 
Pharisees," "the sect of the Sadducees"; and then 
in the passage already referred to. Acts xxiv. 5, 
"the sect of the Nazarenes." So Tertullus said; 
and St. Paul only uses the word as giving his op- 
ponent's view of the case, when he declares, v. 14, 
— " But this I confess unto thee that after the 
way which they call a sect^ so worship I the God 
of my fathers." 

His own faith was not the faith of a sect, for 
who ever taught so earnestly as St. Paul, the 
unity of the one Body, with one Lord, one Faith, 
one Baptism, one hope of our calling .'* For more 
than the space of three years would he have 
wept, had he foreseen to the full what our eyes 
behold so calmly, Christendom in sects ; each of 
these, so far as it is a sect, being partial and 
prejudiced, and using some narrowing system to 
shut out the spirit from the free and natural ab- 



128 GARDEN GRAITH. 



sorption of the truth as taught by Christ and His 
apostles. 

What a vision I have had this day of the poor 
pot-bound spirits ! As with my stunted stocks, 
the pot is more conspicuous than the plant, so is 
it systems rather than souls that have become 
most noticeable. It seems strange, when one 
thinks of it, that the material of these pots was 
in no wise harmful, and in its native state as the 
simple clay, would indeed have enriched the soil, 
giving it more firmness and substance. It was 
only as the burned and hardened clay that it 
could no longer minister life : even as forms 
while fresh and living forms, may yield not sup- 
port only, but choice sustenance to spiritual life; 
but once becoming hard and unyielding, minister 
not life, but death. 

Again, the flower-pots before me are from vari- 
ous potteries ; and therefore some taller, some 
shorter; some broader, some narrower; some clay 
colored and some brown; and would that the 
mischief lay in any one of these distinctions. 
Alas ! it lies not in the special shape, but in the 
fact that they are pots, and every plant bound in 
the most shapely of them this midsummer time, 
is hopelessly dwar'ei. And all the worse is it 



POT-BOUND. 129 



if we try to disguise the nature of our poor clay 
pot. I have a painted one, quite elegantly set 
off with the best vermilion, which only further 
harms it by shutting out all air from its roots. 
I have seen foolish women paying an extra price 
for the shining glazed pots, and who seemed 
never to care whether they were provided with 
drainage or not ; and I have wished that I might 
ask them — **What is your object — a pot, or a 
plant ? " 

Yet how keen-eyed Christians are to the de- 
fects of other systems than their own, and how 
ready to vaunt the advantage of this or that lit- 
tle difference. The vital question is this — does 
any name which marks a distinct company of be- 
lievers, mean more to them than the one name of 
Christian t Which is the more conspicuous on 
their standard.? Do not these denominational 
titles indicate the disciples of a dogma, rather 
than the disciples of Christ t Once committed 
to this sectarian bias through reverence for some 
great leader of thought, or the mere force of 
early training, then the secret pride of consis- 
tency, like a slow sure fire, hardens the mould, 
and lo ! the soul is pot-bound — too prejudiced and 
too self-satisfied to even look into a larger love 



I30 GARDEN GRAITir. 



and liberty. And yet here at our very feet lies 
the rich virgin soil of truth divine, and in it all 
the elements that are needed for the full suste- 
nance of our spirits, to stablish, strengthen, set- 
tle us : — and this has been our pitiful use of it ; 
to gather up a little handful of it, and shaping it 
first into a form, then to dry it into formalism, 
and finally with as much of truth as tJiat will 
hold, and no more, to attempt to nourish our 
souls. 

And now I go back to the breakfast talk with 
which this chapter opened, to answer some of 
the questions then asked. 

— "Why then use these pots at all.'*" 
They have their season of service; they belong 
to infancy: at a certain period they are even in- 
valuable in developing a mass of working roots, 
which shall furnish a sure basis of growth when 
the plant is transferred to the open border. True, 
that is only relatively the best process. When- 
ever it is practicable, a flower is ever the better 
for being sown in the self-same spot where it is 
to grow. This is the way of nature, and even in 
our gardens, whatever can spring up from being 
self-sown, is vastly more vigorous than by any 
other process. But many circumstances combine 



ror-BouND. 131 



to make this impossible, or difficult in most cases; 
so that under existing circumstances, the plan of 
potting is the wiser, but only for a time; the mo- 
ment growth is arrested by it, the evil sets in. 
However, please observe that I am not dealing 
with an inspired type, and am not at all bound 
to prove a perfect analogy. 

— ''But are we to understand you as imply- 
ing, that all Church organizations are evils, as 
such.?" 

No ! and again and again. No ! Nothing is 
clearer in Holy Scripture, than that order and 
discipline are divinely ordained in the family of 
God, and it is almost equally clear that their de- 
tails were very largely entrusted to the judgment 
of the Church, under the guidance of her Heav- 
enly Head. Few tendencies are more to be dep- 
recated, than the desire to cast off such restraints. 
Those who are in authority have need, indeed, to 
consider how far they are responsible for any 
abuse of power and influence, but for those under 
authority, there can be little doubt that loyalty 
is better than license, better often than liberty. 
Indeed do we not know in other spheres than 
this, that the truest liberty consists with even 
rigid law and limitations. We have far too little 



32 GARDEN GRAITH. 



of obedience to authority for our good. There 
is more than one way of breaking 'the fifth com- 
mandment. The shocking irreverence of our age 
transgresses as much in the Church, as in the fam- 
ily, and so each man's pope is his own opinion. 

The great evil to be shunned is of another 
sort, and springs from more interior causes. It 
is sectarian selfishness, party prejudice, fossil- 
ized faith ; precisely that narrowing, cramping, 
isolating influence which formed the first point 
of attack in St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corin- 
thians. 

Had the apostle who was so skilled in borrow- 
ing apt imagery, been a gardener, instead of a 
tent-maker, and so had seen what I have this 
morning, one could easily imagine him proceed- 
ing forthwith to picture these divided and con- 
tentious saints, as bound, some in a Pauline pot, 
some in an Apollonian, and some in a pot shaped 
by Cephas; and he would have hastened to turn 
them out of these (albeit tenfold the size of our 

modern make of endless ist and ian pots) 

saying as he did so: '^ All things are yours ! 
Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, all are 
yours ! " True, any one of these might be the 
specially helpful teacher at first, but never was 



POT-BOUND. 



ZZ 



one to limit himself, by taking upon him such 
a name as "of Paul," or ''of ApoUos," or "of 
Cephas;" he must always be "of Christ." Why 
take the finite when the infinite is ours ? Why 
suffer any portion of the truth, however precious 
to become an incrustation, shutting us out from 
the wealth of all the rest ? 

— "But what then, do you make of these 
choice exotics that are nearly always kept in 
pots ? Your beautiful agapanthus is blooming 
in a pot. Your callas are in pots, and that su- 
perb amaryllis." 

Well, my answer must be a little like St. Paul's. 
" I suppose that this is good for the present ne- 
cessity." It certainly, as I said before, is not 
the best in the natural state of things, for noth- 
ing was ever created in a pot: but surrounded, 
as such plants are, by so many unnatural condi- 
tions, it is the best under existing circumstances. 
Moreover, these bulbous plants seem to have 
special laws of life, and the secret of thriving 
upon very little soil, so it be of the best and 
abundantly watered. I may as well admit, also, 
that some, the amaryllis vallota is a striking ex- 
ample, will not bloom at all, unless pot-bound. 
I lost years in finding that out. It passes my 



34 GARDEN GRAITH. 



comprehension even now; but I accept the fact, 
and with it another, that there are some human 
beings so pecuHarly constituted as to accomplish 
most, in a very limited range of thought and 
action. As to the family of bulbs in general, 
they remind me of those large-hearted Chris- 
tians, who, never being straitened in themselves, 
seem able to triumph over all straitness in their 
surroundings. 

I have another little plant, one of the epi- 
phytes, possessed of such vitality as to thrive 
in every thing. I have tried it alternately, the 
past six months in air and cai'tJi and water 
with little difference of result. But the Chris- 
tian species of epiphytes must be very limited. 

— " But may you not over-estimate the loss 
in being pot- bound .^ However impoverished, 
those of whom you speak are still Christians; 
and if their souls are saved, is not that the 
main thing ">. " 

And are you not using the word saved in too 
restricted a sense ? But using it as you do, I 
would never say, that salvation was the main 
object of the Gospel, but the means to a glorious 
end. That distinction is the very point of this 
morning's lesson; but there is such fearful and 



POT-BOUND. 135 



wide-spread defect in current Christian instruc- 
tion upon the subject, that one needs to cry 
aloud and spare not. And you remember that 
when Isaiah was to do that, the Lord charged 
him to ** show my people \\v€\x transgression;" — yes, 
and the very people who sought him daily, and 
delighted to know His ways. 

Salvation, using it in its negative sense, has 
been widely preached as the great object of 
Christ's redemptive work, to secure which should 
be the one aim of life. Whereas it should be 
taught as the Scriptures teach, that salvation as 
a true gift, v72iS given freely diXid give7i f icily, when 
Christ died for our sins. All forgiveness and 
reconciliation and salvation date from the Cross 
of Christ. The purpose to bestow all these, an- 
tedates the ages; but then the gift became an 
accomplished fact. The actual reception of the 
gift, calls for one condition only, — simple belief. 
Starting then from this certainty, the Scriptures 
everywhere go on to emphasize the object of 
this salvation; which is briefly — conformity to 
Christ through union with Christ — an object so 
important as to be called in turn "the salvation 
ready to be revealed in the last time." Chris- 
tians are ne^^er urged to make their salvation 



136 GARDEN GRAITH. 



sure, but to make tJieir calling and election sure, 
as the only way of having an entrance ministered 
abundantly into the everlasting kingdom. But 
this subject is too vast, to more than touch 
upon. 

If only Christians could be convinced of their 
short-comings, one main trouble would be re- 
moved. As it is, they try to be satisfied; and 
checking the convictions of conscience by much 
mutual congratulation, concentrate all their con- 
cern upon the unsaved. Whereas none of us ought 
to be satisfied with the present state of things in 
the churches themselves. Would that a trumpet 
voice might break in upon all such false ease, 
echoing and re-echoing those sure and solemn 
words: ''He SHALL SUFFER loss!" He, even 
the saved, shall suffer loss ! 

Only suppose, for instance, that the kind friend 
who gave me the choice seed of these stocks, had 
found me in this morning's plight, over my pot- 
bound plants; how would it have answered for 
me to assume an air of great content, and to 
say: "The seeds came up finely, and I am happy 
to say, the plants are all living ! " Yet seriously 
I suppose their state as stocks is beyond that of 
very many Christians. Surely we were planted 



POT-BOUND. 



137 



in His garden, not to exist merely. He placed 
us there to adorn it and to be His joy. He 
placed us there to bear much fruit, and so to 
be to the praise of His glory. He placed us 
there to develope each of us to the utmost ca- 
pabilities of nature, and the utmost possibilities 
of grace. 

— '* But are there not other ways of being 
pot-bound, than the one you have been speak- 
ing of.?" 

Ah yes, I have been thinking of so many other 
ways of becoming narrow in our interests, and 
our sympathies, intellectually, and socially, and 
always to our injury. All the little cliques of 
society, all partisan action tend to this; our 
very virtues, leave us exposed to the danger; for 
instance, great devotion to one's family, shutting 
us off from our wider responsibilities, and patriot- 
ism becoming national selfishness, 

— "But what of those whose misfortune it is 
to be pot-bound, who have been so taught and 
trained, and know not how to get out of their 
straitness." 

Ah, that indeed. We can not go to the depths 
of any subject, without touching this wonderful 
question of solidarity, which is never so signifi- 



^S GARDEN GRAITH. 



cant as in the spiritual sphere, where we are 
all regarded as one body. Our responsibility 
for our influence over others, must be immense. 
How far this ever releases any from their own 
responsibility, who, but One can tell ! 

But this question brings to my mind another 
little lesson, which I trust may give us cheer for 
ourselves, and larger hope for others. 

I was looking over my little lawn, one spring, 
in search of small weeds, when I saw a few tiny 
ovate leaves, I scarcely knew of what, but cer- 
tainly not grass or clover, and therefore doomed. 
My knife was passing rapidly to its root when I 
saw suddenly among those leaves a flower, but 
such a flower ! A pansy ! but surely the sorriest 
pansy that ever struggled into existence. A stray 
seed had been lodged in the close turf, and had 
succeeded in this small way. I was smitten at 
once with admiration for its bravery; its fidelity 
too. Cast out, trodden under foot, among aliens, 
with no kind recognition, with little to help it, 
and with very much to hinder it, still it would do 
its best to be true to its calling, and was still a 
pansy. It could not look very bright, nor be 
very graceful; and yet it had done its utmost. 
"// shall live,'' I said; forlorn as it is, it shall 



POT-BOUND. 139 



have a chance now. And so looking- hither and 
thither for a new home for it, I set it down, 
finally, in the rich soil of my rose border. Be- 
fore that summer ended, it had won the admira- 
tion of all who saw it. Not one of all my high- 
bred pansies equalled this. 

I am sure that little pansy had a special mis- 
sion in this world, and I long for it to speak to 
others as it has spoken to me — to be ever of a 
good courage, and to accept all such straitness 
as may come through circumstances over which 
we have no control, and to bear with a meek 
heart, all that may come to us through the mis- 
understanding or even the malice of others; say- 
ing only, softly, 

"When obstacles and trials seem 
Like prison walls to be, 
I do the little I can do, 

And leave the rest to Thee!" 

In the lack of all human recognition, surely 
the Lord knoweth them that are His. He will 
never mistake their littleness so as to cast them 
away; and His great heart of love will go out to 
them, till He has done for them exceeding abun- 
dantly above all that they ask or think. 



VII. 
aftjr tte Eain. 



VII. 



^tttx tf}e Ijlain* 

" Sfrft the ftarl}i, 
y/ie body of our hody^ the '^^rcen eartfx, 
Indubital^Iy liurnan lil«: thih flesh, 
And thc;-ic articulal/::d veins lhroiij4i wJjIch 
Our heart drives bkK>d ! " 

Mi'.S. liKOWNINO. 

The weary drour^jt is over ! The blesse-d rain 
of heaven fell at last: and now it is as a new 
earth to look upon, and we that look as new 
beings. No more that sultry dryness — no more- 
those hot and hurrying winds that seemed by 
some subtle syirijjathy to wither our very sjjirits. 

Can it be that when our souls are set in unison 
with nature, there comes to us through he-r a 
sympathetic vibration, so that as the soft breath 
')X the strong hand of God passes over her, and 



144 GARDEN GRAITH. 



calls forth her notes of gladness or of gloom, we 
are forced to respond in like manner ? Or is it 
indeed that as '* the body of our body," we can 
but throb and quiver with her ? However it be, 
this sympathy with the moods of nature, appar- 
ently unknown to some, is a very certain fact to 
others. Nor can we possibly have the keen sus- 
ceptibility to her joy without accepting her sor- 
row also. 

"Never the exquisite pain, then never the exquisite bliss, 
For the heart that is dull to that can never be strung to this." 

Yet who, for any suffering that nature ever 
brought us, would forego the dear delight. And 
then to heighten all present compensation comes 
the thought, that her deep groaning and our 
own moaning with her, will soon be ended; 
while it is an immortal boon to be thus — 

"Baptized into the grace 
And privilege of seeing." 

Even now, how easy is it to forget all those 
days of dust and dreariness, for the sweetness 
and freshness of but one day like this, after the 
rain. 

And yet this sympathy with nature which 
makes man " subordinate to the east wind " is 



AFTER THE RAIN. 145 



but a half truth. The fellow to it, who has 
not experienced ? — but who need ever try to 
describe it again, since Coleridge wrote his ** Sib- 
ylline Leaves " : 

"Oh lady! we receive but what we give, 
And in our life alone does nature live: 
Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud ! 

And would we aught behold, of higher worth, 
Than that inanimate cold world allow'd 
To the poor, loveless, ever anxious crowd. 

Ah ! from the soul itself must issue forth, 
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud 

Enveloping the earth — 
And from the soul itself must there be sent 

A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth. 
Of all sweet sounds the life and element ! 

Oh pure of heart ! thou needst not ask of me 
What this strong music in the soul may be ! 
What, and wherein it doth exist. 
This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist, 
This beautiful and beauty niaking power. 

Joy, virtuous lady ! joy that ne'er was given, 
Save to the pure, and in their purest hour, 
Life, and life's effluence, cloud at once and shower, 
Joy, lady ! is the spirit and the power. 
Which wedding nature to us gives in dower, 

A new earth and new heaven, 
Undream't of by the sensual and the proud; 
Joy is the sweet voice, joy the luminous cloud — 



[46 GARDEN GRAITH. 



We in ourselves rejoice ! 
And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight, 

All melodies the echoes of that voice, 
All colors a suffusion from that light." 

I have come down once more to my nook 
beneath the ehn-tree, and have been drinking 
in the new delight — for surely 

" 'Tis one of the charmed days 
When the genius of God doth flow." 

Earth and sky sit gazing each on the other's 
beauty. The breeze is fluttering more lightly 
than the butterfly that flits to and fro. There 
is not a blade of the fresh springing grass that 
does not seem to say, — ''I have been satisfied. 
I have drunk of the rain of heaven and I give 
thanks." There is a hush of holy rest in the 
air; the very birds are resting somewhere, save 
one little humming-bird that comes with its 
marvellous whir of wings to sip nectar from the 
fuchsias at my feet. The hum of insects is al- 
most inaudible, for every thing alike seems bathed 
in bliss. 

All sweet things ever said or sung of such 
prime hours as this, come flitting through one's 
memory. And last of all, there come words 
that are older than all, that sing themselves 



AFTER THE RAIN. 147 



over and over to my listening heart, as I look 
out upon my garden after the rain. 

"Their soul shall be like a watered garden." 



*' Thou shalt be like a watered garden. 
And like a spring of water, 
Whose waters fail not." 

And so I sit and think of all the blessedness 
of heavenly rain, falling in due season upon the 
heart; of soft showers, of still dews, and of un- 
failing springs, of all the many ways in which 
He who watereth the earth, refreshes also the 
soul. In all these many ways has my little gar- 
den been watered, and in ways as various are the 
needs of thirsting spirits met. 

There are some who make the unwise demand 
that the visitations of the Spirit to their souls 
should be overwhelming — sweeping all before 
them, like tropical tempests. But for refresh- 
ment and the quickening of growth, there is 
nothing like the gentle shower. God's best 
ways are quiet ways: and it is only when the 
earth has been long parched, and the very 
springs fail at their sources, that there is some- 
times a need to have the great fountains of heav- 
en unsealed, and the rain to descend in torrents. 



148 GARDEN GRAITH. 



Sitting here with my Bible in hand, and turn- 
ing from one passage to another where the rain 
is spoken of, I am especially struck with its 
being always recognized as a special and sover- 
eign gift of God. We live in a universe of law, 
and God Himself has been well pleased to place 
His fixed ordinances even in His covenant of 
mercy. "While the earth remaineth, seed-time 
and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer 
and winter, and day and night, shall not cease." 
Not so with the winds and the rain. These 
He reserves for His providential dealings, only 
to a limited extent subjecting them to any 
order. 

I read then that for His people's sin " He 
shutteth up the heaven that there be no rain " : 
and again upon their repentance *' He giveth 
rain" — *' He causeth it to rain whether for cor- 
rection, for the land, or for mercy" — ** He saith 
to the snow, 'Be thou on the earth,' and to the 
small rain and the great rain of His strength." 
All is as He saith. It is no chance then, nor the 
working of a fixed law, that decides in every 
storm of winter, which of the thousand forms of 
snow crystals shall then fall; nor in the summer- 
time whether it shall be the small rain or the 



AFTER THE RAIN. 149 



great rain. The very size of the rain-drops is 
ever as " He saith." 

Nothing therefore in nature brings us so close 
to the immediate decisions and present acts of 
God the Creator as does the rain. Each spot 
where it shall fall He also determines. "I caused 
it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain 
upon another city; one piece was rained upon, 
and the piece whereupon it rained not, withered." 

The barrenness of the Holy Land has long 
witnessed to the truth of God's warning word. 

'' And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken 
diligently unto my commandments which I com- 
mand you this day, to love the Lord your God, 
and to serve Him with all your heart, and with 
all your soul, 

''That I will give you the rain of your land in 
his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, 
that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy 
wine, and thine oil. 

"Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be 
not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other 
gods, and worship them; 

''And then the Lord's wrath be kindled against 
you, and He shut up the heaven, that there be 



150 GARDEN GRAITH. 



no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit." 
(Deut. xi. 13-17). 

The fulfilment of this is all the more striking 
that it is not the lack of rain, but the lack of 
its timely distribution as ''the first rain and the 
latter rain" that causes the present absence of 
fertility. More rain it is claimed actually falls 
each year in Palestine than upon any equal area 
in the United States. The drouth and dearth 
are due simply to the fact that at present there 
is only one rainy season. The Prophet Jeremiah 
distinctly assigns this as the cause: ''The show- 
ers have been withholden, and there hath been 
no latter rain" (Jer. iii. 3). 

So too of days that are yet to come upon that 
land Ezekiel prophesies, " I will cause the shower 
to come down in his season; there shall be show- 
ers of blessing" (Ezek. xxxiv. 26). And again 
Zechariah writes, "Ask ye of the Lord rain in 
the time of the latter rain; so the Lord shall 
make bright clouds, and give them showers of 
rain, to every one grass in the field" (Zech. x. i). 
And most striking is it when the same prophet 
announces that in that millennial time the Lord 
will still so control the rain that the nations 
which go not up to Jerusalem to keep the feast 



AFTER THE RAIN. 151 



of tabernacles shall have none fall upon their 
lands (See Zech. xiv. 16, 17). 

But it is not by rain and showers alone that 
God will water the land. Along with almost 
every prophecy that foretells the future blessed- 
ness of restored Israel, we find the promise of 
fountains and rivers, while the entire context 
indicates that this is to be understood literally. 
Thus Isaiah tells us more than once how "in the 
wilderness shall waters break out, and streams 
in the desert"; while Ezekiel describes the won- 
derful waters that flowing from the temple, are 
to widen and deepen, and bring life along their 
path, and healing even to the Dead Sea. And 
yet again, Zechariah foretells still more wonderful 
and convulsive physical changes that will place 
Jerusalem upon a highway of waters, and connect 
it thus with the two great seas upon the east 
and the west. How it thrills me to sit here in 
this little garden and read those words written 
thousands of years ago, and waiting still for their 
accomplishment, which in the end will come and 
will not tarry. Do any of you ask what can 
Judea be to me } Then I must answer that it is 
much to our Lord. ** A land which the Lord thy 
God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God 



152 GARDEN GRAITH. 



are always upon it, from the beginning of the 
year even unto the end of the year " (Deut. xi. 
12). It is as plainly His elect land as Israel 
is His elect people ; and to me nothing can be 
more natural, as I see my own little garden 
that I so love and care for refreshed by the 
rain, than to consider sadly how His land still 
lieth desolate; and then to think exultingly of 
all the beauty and glory that shall yet fill it. 
My lips involuntarily burst forth in the song of 
Isaiah (Ixii. 5), 

"For as a young man weddeth a virgin, 
So shall thy Restorer wed thee; 
And with the joy of a bridegroom in his bride, 
So shall thy God rejoice in thee ! " 

My Bible grows real to me in its most neg- 
lected regions, as I see it thus link together 
the past and the future, things earthly and 
things heavenly. 

But I must not overlook other passages which 
speak of God's fatherly faithfulness in sending 
rain upon the just and on the unjust. I linger 
long over these beautiful and most suggestive 
words of St. Paul at Lystra — 

''Who in times past suffered all nations to 
walk in their own ways. 



AFTER THE RAIN, 153 



'^ Nevertheless He left not Himself without 
witness, in that He did good, and gave us rain 
from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts 
with food and gladness" (Acts xiv. 16, 17). 

So while the people who had His law were 
placed under that special training of reward and 
punishment, which now gave and now withheld 
their rain, those other nations who had it not, 
and whom He suffered to walk in their own 
ways, were all the time receiving this powerful 
witness that there was a God of love — "rain 
from heaven and fruitful seasons." How won- 
derful that being what they were — and that St. 
Paul elsewhere tells us in solemn, fearful words — 
yet nevertheless God filled their hearts with food 
and gladness ! What gladness was left for them — 
our narrower thought might ask — but still God 
made them even glad. So as I sit here in my 
garden this morning after the rain, how can I 
but think of all the heathen also, and of this 
loving attitude of God towards them, as so 
clearly preached to themselves by St. Paul ; 
and how can I but offer the secret prayer that 
in all our thoughts of the heathen, and in all 
our messages to them, we may be truly the chil- 
dren of our Father which is in Heaven. 



154 GARDEN GRAITH. 



And now that we have seen what is the min- 
istry of the rain for the Jew and for the Gentile, 
let us learn finally what use the Bible makes of 
it in teaching us who are of the Church of God. 

In the sublime song of Moses, the oldest poem 
in the world, we have as the first promise there 
given by God, these rhythmic words, that sound 
not unlike the falling rain itself, 

"My doctrine shall drop as the rain, 
My speech shall distil as the dew; 
As the small rain upon the tender herb, 
And as the showers upon the grass." 

Deut. xxxii. 2. 

Divine doctrine is then to the soul what the 
rain is to the earth. Not the most perfect seed 
in the most propitious soil, can ever reach its 
full development without the rain of heaven; and 
in proportion to its timely supply will be the 
beauty and fertility of the land. The earthly 
elements, however rich, can never suffice without 
the heavenly aid; as most surely no soul that is 
not constantly nourished by the Spirit of God 
working through His word and truth can ever 
be developed according to the eternal purpose. 

Most remarkably is the analogy between the 



AFTER THE RAIN. 155 



two processes sustained, even in minute modes. 
It is a wonderful provision, which it is to be 
feared many have never even thought about, that 
the rain should fall in globules, and not as the 
sheet of a cataract. The gentleness with which it 
mostly falls so as to bring no harm to the tender 
herbage, is one of the most perfect of the pro- 
cesses of nature; while on the other hand the 
time thus allowed for the absorption of drop after 
drop, is usually so adjusted that there is little 
waste of the treasure. 

How I watched the rain as it fell yesterday 
upon my newly mown grass. Not a blade was 
overlooked. All around, with the utmost im- 
partiality, each of the tiny drops stole into its 
place, steadily, swiftly; and as eagerly the earth 
received them, so that nowhere the rain stood in 
little pools. How my thoughts followed them 
chasing each other down to the thirsty roots, 
while life began so visibly to course its upward 
way. How green it grew with every hour of the 
still falling rain; and this morning how glowing 
and brilliant it was in the sunrise, with every 
blade of grass crowned with a diamond. Even 
so God does not let loose His truth in overwhelm- 
ing torrents upon our souls. It is here a little 



156 GARDEN GRAITH. 



and there a little as His word reaches our hearts. 
Are they the words of His prophets, or apostles, 
or more precious still, the teaching of our Lord 
Himself — then each holy word falls softly on the 
spirit, and there is not a thought or emotion or 
hidden power in our being that does not drink 
in the refreshment. One after another the rev- 
elations of His love, and power, and purpose, and 
of Himself, follow and follow still, sinking deeper 
and deeper, as we eagerly receive them; and of 
very necessity every grace is quickened from its 
deepest root into new vigor of life. Most blessed 
reality that His doctrine drops as the rain ! 

I overheard this morning the counsel given to 
a young Christian to ''Let doctrine alone." 
Alas ! that its accepted sense should have come 
to be that of cumbrous systems and formal plans ! 
But such is not doctrine in the scriptural sense. 
The doctrine that falls as the rain is '' the name 
of the Lord ; " all that makes known to us His Per- 
son, His character, His acts, His thoughts, His 
love. These we receive into our inmost being, 
and His divine nature is thus imparted to us, so 
that Christ liveth in us, as the rain lives in all 
our flowers and fruits and forests. Slowly and 
surely our spiritual being expands as the words 



AFTER THE RAIN. 157 



He Speaks to us become unto us spirit and life. 
In proportion only to our receptivity can be our 
return of new life to Him. 

But some one asks sadly, " What if the rain 
do not fall } What if the Spirit does not give us 
these special seasons of refreshing .? What com- 
fort is there for us, who knew indeed what it was 
to be so watered in the bright spring-time of our 
spiritual life, but who dwell now in a dry land, 
and have no latter rain; who pray for showers and 
yet they come not } " 

An answer awaits us in nature that is in per- 
fect harmony with the Word of God. Fertility 
and growth attract the rain. Wherever it is so 
drunk in, and comes forth in humid greenness — 
whether it be of grass, or harvest fields, or wood- 
lands, there the clouds will gather and the rain 
fall. It is as our Lord taught us: "Whosoever 
hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have 
more abundance." 

If, drinking in His rain as it fell oft upon you 
at the first, you had brought forth the herbage 
that is meet for Him whose husbandry you are, 
then without fail His further and final blessings 
had been given you. But what use did you make 
of your spiritual refreshings in the past } Did 



158 GARDEN GRAITH. 



you receive them selfishly, to let them evaporate 
in some mere luxurious emotion ? or were they 
wrought out in a holier life of loving service to 
the Lord and to one another ? 

Churches and communities sometimes bewail 
their dearth and drought, and marvel why in the 
days of old the showers of heaven were so abun- 
dant. Ah, but how many godly men and women 
in those days, stood like trees of righteousness, 
and by their prayers and by their service, drew 
down the blessing of God not only on them- 
selves, but on others. As these have fallen 
there are few of like loftiness of soul to take 
their places. And when the forests are felled 
we need not wonder if the fountains fail, and 
the rain tarries. Most clearly it lies within the 
scope of our spiritual power to reclaim these 
blessings. 

But how precious is that other part of the 
promise that *' His speech shall distil as the 
dew." Not every day can we have those extra- 
ordinary refreshings which so uplift our souls; 
nor would it be best for our growth. But con- 
tinually may we enjoy the still sustenance of the 
dew. It is one of the rarest exceptions when no 
dew falls in my garden, and perhaps it is nour- 



AFTER THE RAIN. 159 



ished even more in this way than by the rains. 
As I go to my morning work among the flowers, 
the dew rests everywhere, often as heavily as 
though a shower had fallen — that is everywhere 
that there is life to receive it; for I do not find 
the dew upon my garden walks, nor on any bar- 
ren spot. But every leaf is laden, and every 
flower is fresh from this baptism by the Hand of 
God. And then as I lightly stir the soil around 
my flowers, where it is becoming hard and im- 
pervious to air, these heavy dews contribute 
their little quota of rich refreshing to the soil 
itself. 

''Oh blessed dew of the speech of God." How 
faithful and constant is thy coming ! How thou 
visitest us in the still hours and in the hours of 
shadow ! How dost thou utter thy wisdom al- 
most inaudibly ! We see no cloud, we hear no 
sound, and yet thy presence is with us and our 
souls are rejoicing. Thy love bathes our souls 
with delight. We bow down beneath its gentle 
pressure in adoring gratitude. The fragrance of 
our souls goes forth to thee as every pore of our 
being opens at this soft touch. We are alone 
with thee, and thou speakest to our hearts. 
Thou canst not come to us thus in the broad 



:6o GARDEN GRAITH. 



light of the busy day, and we bless thee for the 
still hours in which our souls are charged anew 
with life. 

Whenever in the hours of night I waken to 
hear the winds soughing in the thick boughs of 
the oaks above my roof, I know that I shall find 
no dew in the morning. It falls only in stillness. 
And if my soul be perturbed with any wind of 
passion, or any restlessness, how well I know 
that I am not in that receptive state in which 
God's heavenly dew can distil upon me. How 
can the still small voice of His speech be heard, 
if I be not quiet } 

And how often is it literally in the night sea- 
son that these spiritual refreshments come. How 
full are the Psalms and Prophets of this. **I 
have remembered thy name O Lord in the 
night" — "With my soul have I desired thee in 
the night." 

"My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; 
And my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: 
When I remember thee upon my bed, 
And meditate on thee in the night watches." 

Ps. Ixiii. 5, 6. 

But most wonderful of all are those words that 



AFTER THE RAIN. i6l 



tell US how true it was of our Lord also, that **the 
dew lay all night upon His branches." ''And it 
came to pass in those days that He went out 
into a mountain to pray, and continued all night 
in the prayer of God." — A unique expression for 
a prayer unlike other prayers, and implying as 
Prof Godet has so beautifully shown, the most 
intimate and loving communion between the Fa- 
ther and the Son. 

A dear friend who has been often in my garden 
sent me lately these sweet thoughts of McCheyne 
on this subject — 

** In Hosea the gift of the Holy Spirit is com- 
pared to dew, * I will be as the dew unto Israel.' 
Now it is peculiarly true of the dew that it 
moistens every thing where it falls ; it leaves 
not one leaf unvisited; there is not a tiny blade 
of grass on which the diamond drops do not de- 
scend; every leaf and stem of the bush is bur- 
dened with the precious load; just so it is pe- 
culiarly true of the Spirit, that there is not a 
faculty, there is not an affection, or power, or 
passion of the soul, on which the Spirit does not 
descend — working through all, refreshing, reviv- 
ing, renewing, recreating all. And if we are 
really in Christ Jesus, abiding in Him by faith. 



1 62 GARDEN GRAITH. 



we are bound to expect this supernatural power 
to work through our understanding." 

But while my garden rejoices in all these bless- 
ings, rain and showers and dews, still such is the 
excessive heat and dryness of this climate that 
without one more gift it would often be desolate. 
But as I have said before, the very centre of my 
little domain is '*a spring of water whose waters 
fail not." This it is that makes glad my garden. 
And now I must at last redeem my promise to 
give its little history. 

In accepting this location as my future home, 
the one pressing necessity to be met first of all, 
was the supply of water, and some friends came 
over with me -to discuss the matter. The valley 
below me was full of its healing springs, and 
other springs of pure water gushed all along the 
hill-.side. But from this one spot, so far beyond 
the others in all else, the gift of water seemed 
strangely withheld. So we stood rather sadly in 
the little hollow yonder, looking at the bracken 
and rushes at our feet. 

*'This is at least a damp spot," I said; *'why 
may there not be a spring below the surface ? " 

My good friend smiled a little as he answered : 
''Because if it could be there at all it would be 



AFTER THE RAIN. 163 



there already. The soil is so sandy that there 
is nothing to hinder it from springing up." 

To this wisdom I could make no answer; but 
just then his little boy who had come with a 
garden trowel in his hand, stooped to dig up 
a pretty fern, and as our eyes followed his work 
we saw as the roots were lifted, bright drops of 
sparkling water bubbling up. ''A good omen at 
least," I urged — " If a little springs up, why not 
more } " So a man was soon set to w^ork. A 
space was excavated ; the water rushed in and 
filled it, and when allowed to settle, it was per- 
fectly clear and pure. But it failed to overflow, 
and therefore it was not yet a spring. Again he 
dug deeper, but with the same result. It was 
clear and full to the brim, but after a long wait- 
ing, there was no more. There was plainly some 
mystery about the matter, and one after another 
those who were counted wise in such matters 
came to examine it — but could give no explana- 
tion. Still my instructions were — "Dig deeper." 
This had gone on for some days, the wonder 
constantly increasing how there should be so 
much water and no more, when as I stood 
watching the workman he gave a sudden shout, 

"Ah, lady, I've got it !" 



.64 GARDEN GRAITH. 



" Got what ? " I asked. 

** An old underdrain," he answered, as he went 
on to explain how in the first settlement of the 
country, a very rude but effectual underdrain was 
often made by laying the trunks or branches of 
trees in a trench, and then covering them with 
earth. Such a one had been laid here, it was 
plain, from a once copious spring; but now as 
soon as the axe had done its work, and the tree 
was removed, it ceased to steal away this treas- 
ure of waters, and to carry them along this hid- 
den pathway to the broad stream in the valley. 
And now up gushed at once the living waters, 
and overflowed, and overflowed, as though they 
would sweep all before them. It has flowed ever 
since, and so abundantly that it could quench the 
thirst of thousands, daily. It meets all the needs 
of my home, and all the needs of my flowers, and 
when it has fed the little fountain below, and per- 
formed all its manifold services, there is still the 
half of it to flow away. 

I always associate this deep spring with that 
promise of our Lord — ''The water that I shall 
give him, shall be in him a well of water, spring- 
ing up into everlasting life." Yet in reality, how 
few know either the fulness or the overflow. 



AFTER THE RAIN. 165 



How few can call the gift of the Spirit to their 
souls, a well for depth, and a fountain for fresh- 
ness. How few can claim in their inner life, the 
spontaneity and the unwearied energy of a foun- 
tain. 

It is not every home that has an unfailing 
spring. The majority of the country-folk are 
well content with pumps: and it is the pump 
rather than the fountain, that may best repre- 
sent the activity of a multitude of Christian 
workers. We all know the law of a pump; 
that it is simply a stroke and a stream, an- 
other stroke and another stream; and then when 
you stop, it stops. In like manner we see all 
around us, effort, effort, with blessing following, 
but short-lived blessing: then redoubled effort 
till the laborers grow weary. And yet a pump 
is a good thing. I am only saying that a foun- 
tain is far better. 

I have, however, a most vivid recollection of 
an old pump, familiar to my childhood, that had 
a sad trick of running down. How often have I 
stood looking on, as the vain attempt was made 
to raise it. Up and down the strong hands would 
ply the handle, swifter and swifter, till the sigh 
of utter impatience would be heard. And then as 



66 GARDEN GRAITH. 



the last resource, some water would be brought 
from another well, with which to start it; but 
still, as soon as it was left to itself, down it 
would go, and the same process have to be re- 
newed. Is the antitype far to seek? The soul that 
has lost all its own power, and that can only bor- 
row a brief stimulus from some other full soul, 
and then sink back into its own emptiness — there 
is something utterly wrong about it all. Such 
lives are not according to the purpose and pro- 
vision of our Lord. 

The old prophets were full of the thought of 
spiritual spontaneity. The first psalm is alive 
with it: the tree is planted by the rivers of 
water, and that secures its growth and fruitful- 
ness. But nowadays, Christians seem ever sink- 
ing into a stupor from which they try to rouse 
themselves by galvanic shocks. Only a second- 
class work can ever be. the result. The first 
great need of a servant of Christ is an inner 
and impelling power, like a fountain springing 
up. Human energies are full of restless effort: 
the Spirit of God is full of quiet power. We can 
never find any thing that will supply its place 
in the work of God. 

And why is it, we all ask sorrowfully, that we 



AFTER THE RAIN. 167 



see so little of His power. We know that as 
truly as we are Christ's, we have the Spirit of 
God, that He does dwell already in each believ- 
ing heart. There can be no staying of the hand 
of God in pouring out abundantly, this His best 
gift. Into every spirit renewed from above the 
living waters, surely come. But alas, for all our 
underdrains, that will not let them gush and 
flow. Some other affection, or interest, or pur- 
suit, enters into the life, and the stream disap- 
pears. It matters very little what it is, so it be 
any thing coming between us and our devotion 
to our Lord. I can not tell whether that tree, 
which for a hundred years had caused one spring 
less to be numbered along the hill-side, were oak 
or pine. It matters not, it was an underdrain. 
And ask me not to say, whether this or that 
pleasure or pursuit be wrong; but let us ask 
ourselves rather, ''does it at all withdraw my 
heart from God ? " A little thing or a great, an 
evil thing or a good, may alike prove the hin- 
drance. We can not at once live unto ourselves 
and unto Him who died for us. And what is 
there so good, that it is worth the loss of the 
living waters, gushing in our hearts, and over- 
flowing; that can for a moment, be worth a full 



.68 GARDEN GRAITH. 



and overflowing, and abiding love and joy and 
peace. God give us all the grace to go down 
below the surface of our lives, till somewhere in 
its hidden depths, we find our hindrance, and 
thrust it away forever; and so may He fulfil to 
each of us. His gracious promise — ''Thou shalt 
be like a watered garden, and like a spring of 
water, whose waters fail not." 



YIII. 



VIII. 
Wije iLife aSegonli. 

"Shadow and shine is life, flower and thorn." 

Tennyson. 

" There is no death ! The leaves may fall, 
The flowers may fade and pass away; 
They only wait, through wintry hours. 
The coming of the May." 

Sir E. Bulwer-Lytton. 

I have come back to my long-deserted cottage 
and garden. I left them just as the frost began 
its deadly undoing of my loving labors, and the 
tender things were hurried off to their winter 
housing. I stood and watched them, as with 
all their bright beauty, they were carried away 
from my sight, to be seen no more, till another 
spring should come; and then closed the door 
and came within, saying to myself, ''And that 
is life, to hold our treasures a brief summer-time, 



172 GARDEN GRAITH. 



and then to miss them; to abound awhile in all 
bright things, and then suddenly to be stript and 
desolate. And yet that which is so taken out 
of life, is not dead, but living; is not lost, but 
cared for more tenderly elsewhere, beyond the 
reach of wind and frost, to be given back to us 
some coming day, in a new beauty, and with a 
new joy. 

I have been away since that day, in more sun- 
ny regions, among the hills and the mountains, 
watching the glory of the October forests. Surely 
none who have seen them this year, can soon for- 
get the extraordinary charms they have put on, 
as though celebrating some jubilee among the 
years; now arrayed in soft soothing harmonies 
of color, and then startling us with some group 
of rich and marvellous contrasts. It is almost 
enough indeed to reconcile us to their death, to 
see such glory in their dying; one might apply 
to them the eulogy pronounced on the thane of 
Cawdor, 

"Nothing in his life 
Became him like the leaving it." 

But to look down from heights where the eye 
could sweep over thousands of roods of wood- 
land, to see those ruby and golden trees set like 



THE LIFE BEYOND. 17^ 



flower-beds in the deep valleys, to see the hills 
turn to glowing mosaics, and the mountains pur- 
pled with them, till in the sunset glow they paled 
" though rose and amethyst," — all this was to 
have some little earnest of the glory of the new 
heavens and new earth. 

This morning I have re-entered my study. 
Truly the summer is ended. The blazing wood- 
fire is heaped high upon the hearth, for warmth 
and cheer, and the shutters are folded back to 
give leave to the sunshine to slant in across the 
floor. The days for my arbor are over. 

I could hardly bear to go out and see it — the 
helpless death and dying everywhere, half cov- 
ered with heaps of fallen leaves, with bits of 
broken boughs tossed in their midst. I hurried 
on, trying to look only at the little life that still 
lingered, and gathering in m.y hand a few brave 
and loyal blossoms. In the days of my summer 
wealth, I would have disdained them; but as 
they stand upon my table, they seem as precious 
as the last smile on the face of one we love. 
There are only a few sprigs of green or purpled 
leaves, some graceful grasses draping the vase, 
and then for flowers, sweet alyssum and mig- 
nonette (not very fragrant now), the petunia, 



74 GARDEN GRAITH. 



and Drummond phlox, and a few bright faced 
pansies; and last of all, a few sprays of forget- 
me-not; alas, what ails the little blue eyes, for 
they are reddened as if with weeping. Scanty 
gleanings these, and yet they suffice to fulfil 
their blessed mission: 

" To comfort man, to whisper hope. 
Whene'er his faith is dim; 
For whoso careth for the flowers, 
Will much more care for him." 

As I have placed them thus together, I have 
found that this simple act, touched a chord of 
sympathy with heart after heart. I looked round 
upon one after another in the wide circle of my 
friends, of whom some in advancing years, many in 
the mid-day of life, and not a few even at its very 
dawn, had found themselves stripped of almost 
all that had been the light of their eyes. And 
yet how had I seen them cheerfully gather up 
the little that remained, and thank God without 
a murmur, that He still permitted them so much 
of brightness. 

And to you, and such as you, shall this hour 
be sacred. The garden was for the glad, that 
they might learn to temper joy with thoughtful- 



THE LIFE BEYOND. 175 



ness. But now the welcome to my fire-side, and 
these remnants of my garden graith, is for those 
only, who have known sorrow. 

Stricken ones, with wounds too tender for any 
but God's own hand to touch, come in, if haply 
He Himself may speak to your hearts. Lonely 
ones, draw hither in thought, that so some lov- 
ing smile may light on you. Weary ones, who 
have found that time is a slow healer, enter, that 
we may seek some balm of holy patience. And 
ye who have not so much as dared to say, "I suf- 
fer," but must hide it from all eyes, here is your 
sheltered corner. And as we thus gather, to 
learn the last lesson from His book of flowers, 
which surely must be the hardest and yet the 
wisest, may God give us each the grace to know 
the sacredness of all true sorrow, and to touch it 
with no careless hand; and may He give us all 
the grace not to refuse to be comforted. 

And yet, dear friends, we should not do wisely 
were we to speak much of grief itself. The grief 
is the unalterable fact ; to the world an awful 
necessity, but to those who are not of the world, 
a faithful ** needs be," the meaning of which they 
set themselves humbly to learn. 

Nor will we seek our deepest lessons first. 



176 GARDEN GRAITH. 



As I have considered to-day, how many losses 
besides those of bereavement, life must meet 
with as it speeds on its way, how the unpity- 
ing frost seizes one blossom after another, I have 
thought how wise it were to bear this in mind in 
the early seed sowing and planting, and to cul- 
tivate especially such pleasures and pursuits as 
we may hope to retain the longest. 

Come with me for a moment to these wide 
south windows, and let your eye sweep along 
that thickly wooded hill — "a hanging wood" 
as it is called in England. The brilliant tints 
have all passed; only a few pale clarets still 
linger. But you can not fail to see that the 
pine-trees make the glory now. They were 
barely noticed in the crowded green of summer; 
now they stand up in all their majesty. And 
along the more open hill, how beautiful are the 
groups of fir and cedar. How deep and rich 
their noontide shadows on the grass. What 
were autumn and winter without our evergreens; 
and what were age without the sympathies and 
affections that no time can chill, and that never 
can reach their highest value save through some 
other loss. 

By the way, did you ever think out the im- 



THE LIFE BEYOND. 1 77 



port of that beautiful promise in Isaiah, "In- 
stead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree ? " 
Hosea says, ''I am like a green fir-tree." In 
my mind the association of this tree with that 
which it is like, is so vivid that I soon forget 
the fir-tree, for the reverence that comes over 
me for the good and great of earth. In all that 
we are now looking at, of whatever height, you 
notice that each has a leader pointing directly 
upward. That always says to me, *' This one 
thing I do" — *'One thing have I desired of the 
Lord, that will I seek after." The Christian has 
always one heavenly aim higher than all others. 
And then beneath that leader, in what perfect 
balance and symmetry the boughs spread out, — 
like the fully rounded, much embracing life that 
should be ours. As with each year the leader 
rises higher, so is a new circle of boughs formed, 
and every old circle widened; — like the ever-in- 
creasing interests and growing breadth of sym- 
pathy, which are so sure to follow a true devoted- 
ness to God. 



"Where Thou art most 
Beloved, is room for all ! the heart grows wide 
That holdeth Thee ! a heaven where none doth 
Upon the other." 



178 GARDEN GRAITH. 



And last of all the fir-tree is evergreen; — yes, 
even brighter now than in the summer. How 
well I remember those noble trees as they grew 
upon their native Scandinavian hills, in such lux- 
uriance and grandeur as are never seen here. 
They alone, would make any land beautiful. 
And oh, how beautiful would the whole earth 
be, if each of God's children were like a fir-tree ! 
"But your poor heart is more like the thorn" — 
did you say } Ah well, that is no hindrance to 
His blessing you, and making you a blessing. 
It is this very change that He has promised; — 
''Instead of the thorn shall spring up the fir-tree." 
This is His everlasting sign that He has said 
shall not be cut off. Let Him at once replant 
your heart and life. 

But look now at the grace of my elm-tree. 
See the bold springing arms and interlacing 
boughs, now that the last leaf is gone, and mark 
that bright aureola of flame that circles its lofty 
trunk, where the crimsoned stems of the creeper 
are still clinging. How the eye never wearies 
in following all the perfect tracery against the 
blue sky. It has seemed to me almost more 
delightful than the summer greenness. And 
have you never seen in adversity, the true man 



THE LIFE BEYOND. 1 79 



Stand out like that, not only in majesty but in 
grace, quite unharmed by the loss of all that 
was adventitious, and never until then, fully seen 
and known ? 

I am sure that you noticed as you entered, 
that cut-leaved birch near the walk, with the 
silver bark of its most graceful trunk, and its 
brown pendulous branchlets, shimmering through 
the pale gold of its rapidly thinning leaves: — 
and does it not remind you of the true woman's 
self, never so abounding in delicate grace and 
rare beauty, as when she seems to the common 
eye to have outlived them? 

The oaks too — only look for a moment up 
into the midst of those grand old arms, that al- 
ways bring to my mind the most vigorous verse 
that Cowper ever wrote — fragment as it is — his 
"Yardley Oak." 

"A giant bulk 
Of girth enormous, with moss-cushioned root 
Upheaved above the sod, and sides embossed 
With prominent wens globose." 

But covered as they now are, only with dull 
leathery leaves clinging to the last, and giving 
them a more death-like look, it is not death that 



l8o GARDEN GRAITH. 



I behold, but essential life. Not one of them 
is yielding to decay. To not one could it pos- 
sibly be said, *' Cut it down; why cumbereth it 
the ground 1 " — for all that each has been to me 
in the past, that, and even far more will each be 
to me in the future. I can not think as much 
of their past life, as of their life that is to be. 

That which my mind has been most busy over 
this morning, is the future of my garden. Ac- 
cepting this necessity of a passing dreariness, I 
am not occupied with that. I am looking on- 
ward, storing away in safety seeds and bulbs, 
and directing the decay around me to be gath- 
ered up to minister to richer life. Out of these 
fallen mouldering leaves shall yet leap the life 
that shall be "beautiful exceedingly." I am 
planning for another summer that is to be. To- 
morrow I must go forth and plant some of my 
bulbs in the chilly soil. As I do it, I shall have 
before me a vision of hope. I shall see the 
swelling buds. I shall hear the singing of birds. 
The great joy of a new life will fill my heart. 
No, it is not all ended, and here upon the thresh- 
old of death, seems the true beginning of the 
new year. Now every plan is matured, every 
purpose settled; and very much must now be 



THE LIFE BEYOND. i8l 



done if I am to have any real delight in another 
summer. In the midst of the gloom, I summon 
all my skill to the happy task of making ready 
for that bright future. 

And thus it seems to me that in any true view 
of life, the coming on of age brings out into such 
prominence the life beyond, that instead of weary 
retrospect, a bright anticipation fills the heart; 
and all of this life assumes to the eternal life, a 
relation so like that of infancy to maturity, that 
the spirit can indulge in the most eager dreams 
of youth. Blessed "second childhood " this, for 
all who find it. We lose most precious hours 
when we only sit down in our gardens to brood 
over their desolations. Listen to this earnest 
remonstrance from a woman's soul: — 

"Blaspheme not thou thy sacred life, nor turn 
O'er joys that God hath for a season lent 
Perchance to try thy spirit, and its bent, 
Effeminate soul and base — weakly to mourn. 
There lies no desert in the land of life; 
For e'en that tract that barrenest doth seem, 
Labored of thee in faith and hope, shall teem 
With heavenly harvests, and rich gatherings, rife. 
Haply no more, music and mirth and love, 
And glorious things of old and younger art, 
Shall of thy days make one perpetual feast: 



1 82 GARDEN GRAITH. 



But when these bright companions all depart, 

Lay there thy head upon the ample breast 

Of Hope, — and thou shalt hear the angels sing above."* 

And by the side of this let me place another 
sonnet, by Mrs. Browning, entitled, '' Patience 
Taught by Nature": — 

♦* * O dreary life ! ' we cry, * O dreary life ! ' 
And still the generations of the birds 
Smg through our sighing, and the flocks and herds 
Serenely live, while we are keeping strife, 
With Heaven's tme purpose on us, as a knife 
Against which we may struggle. Ocean girds 
Unslackened, the dry land: savannah-swards 
Un weary sweep: hills watch unwoni; and rife, 
Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees, 
To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass 
In their old glory. O Thou God of old ! 
Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these, — 
But so much patience, as a blade of grass 
Grows by, contented through the heat and cold." 

But if my work of seed sowing called for care, 
how much more this, the planting of my bulbs. 
I must choose the sunniest spot and the ripest 
soil. I must place them where the heavy rains 
will not wash them, nor the frosts lift them. 

* By Frances Anne Kemble. 



THE LIFE BEYOND. 183 



And only with such painstaking as very few are 
willing to give, will some of the loveliest suc- 
ceed. You see that little package on my table 
covered with foreign stamps. It contains anem- 
ones that have just reached me from Rome. 
There is something exhilarating to me in the 
thought that I am to have some of the flowers 
of "the eternal city" — that the dust of past 
ages wrought into a flower, and then treasured 
in these dry and knotted and most unshapely 
of all tuberous roots, is now to ally itself with 
the dust of this modern world, and grace my 
garden as they graced those southern hills. 
This has made indeed the poetry of my garden, 
that it was so rich in delightful associations. 
Many a home where I have been the happy 
guest, has sent some of its treasures hither, to be 
welcomed and beloved for the giver's sake. 
There are few things here that have not an 
honored pedigree. These roses, still so full of 
buds that are waiting for the Indian summer, 
speak of the untiring devotion of one who has 
made it her delight to shed brightness along 
my path, by all loving, thoughtful kindnesses. 
My flowers grow almost human in this way, and 
can you wonder that I sometimes stoop to kiss 



1 84 GARDEN GRAITH. 



them as though they were the beloved givers. 
So too, all those fair lands beyond the sea where 
my feet have wandered, have each something 
here to keep them in remembrance; and how 
fitly do they speak to me of all the varied in- 
fluences out of the past, and out of the present, 
from afar, and near, that come to enrich our lives. 
So, my little Roman pilgrims, you are more 
than welcome to these western shores, and you 
will carry me back to all that Rome has ever 
been to me; to her old historians and orators 
and poets, to the words that were so largely the 
food of my young intellectual life. In you I shall 
have living links that will make Virgil and Hor- 
ace blossom again in the garden of memory, and 
revive the olden spell of Tacitus and Cicero. I 
can not cast them aside, and I need not; for do 
I not find the truth of what Keble has taught us — 

"What seemed an idol hymn, now breathes of Thee, 
Tuned by Faith's ear to some celestial melody." 

"There's not a strain to memory dear, 
Nor flower in classic grove, 
There's not a sweet note warbled here, 
But minds us of Thy Love. 
O Lord, our Lord, and spoiler of our foes, 
There is no light but Thine; with Thee all beauty glows." 



THE LIFE BEYOND. 1 85 



As I plant my autumn bulbs, it seems so 
strange in one respect. In the spring I watch 
every thing; but these I leave unwatched. I 
give all possible present care, and then go far 
away, and not an eye will look on, or a hand 
touch them, for nearly half a year. It seems 
such an act of faith; — and how like it is to the 
many things that loved and desired, are yet left 
behind, not buried, but planted , biding that time 
when all that has been committed in faith and 
hope to Him, who both died and rose again, will 
be ours. 

"Thou bringest all again; with Thee 

Is light, is space, is breadth and room 
For each thing fair, beloved and free 
To have its hour of life and bloom. 

"Each heart's deep instinct unconfessed; 
Each lowly wish, each daiing claim; 
All, all that life hath long repressed, 
Unfolds, undreading blight or blame. 

"Thy reign eternal will not cease; 

Thy years are sure, and glad, and slow; 
Within Thy mighty world of peace 

The humblest flower hath leave to blow." 

Who that should look upon this earth for the 

first time, on some dull November day, seeing 



1 86 GARDEN GRAITH. 



only its leafless trees and bare patches of soil, 
would ever venture to dream of all that it will 
be, when no more unclothed but clothed upon. 
But this earthly life must surely bear much the 
same relation to the heavenly, that winter bears 
to summer; and most foolishly do we often judge 
of it, having never seen that glory beyond. As 
we look over the world with all its wrongs and 
sorrows, its darkness and degradation, how many 
are ready to ask, ''Is life worth living.?" But 
though God Himself may seem to have turned 
away from the work of His hands, and to visit it 
no more, He never fo7^gets. His plans are set- 
tled, His purposes sure. When once our eyes 
see ''the end of the Lord," then we shall know, 
that "the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender 
mercy." I have been strangely touched to-day 
in reading some words of Dora Greenwell in a 
little poem called, ''Agnes among the Sisters." 

"My heart runs o'er 
With pity and with love, for these were made 
For noble creatures, that within the shade 
Kept by man's fraud, and cheated of their right 
In the great Father's heritage of light 
And warmth, have shrunk to mildewed forms like these ; 
So will they die, methinks, and never knovf 



THE LIFE BEYOND. 187 



What life was made of, till they pass above 

To sun themselves forever in the love 

Whose blessed reflex they have missed below.'''' 

To how many others one might apply these 
words. The great burden of human sorrow would 
become insupportable to us, did we not learn ha- 
bitually to look at the things which are not seen. 

My chief remaining work in my garden this 
autumn, will be pruning and ''cutting back." 
My choicest and most fruitful vines will have to 
suffer most. My sweet roses will be cut down 
nearly to the root. I fondly imagine them en- 
dowed with consciousness for a moment, and 
looking at me in amazement, at such a return 
for all their fruit and flowers; to be touched not 
at one point only, but at all points — to find their 
growth arrested, and life driven back upon itself, 
as though its energies were not at all wanted. 
" Dost thou indeed slay us .^ " — they seem to ask. 
But lest we should say it — our great Husband- 
man speaks as He touches us, — '* Every branch 
that beareth fruit, I purge it that it may bring 
forth more fruit." It has been well said — *' Some 
of the grandest work which God in the interests 
of His kingdom has to accomplish, can be trusted 
only to those, who broken and crushed by earth's 



1 88 GARDEN GRAITH. 



disappointments and failures, nevertheless rise 
out of it all to say, ' I am crucified with Christ, 
nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth 
in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, 
I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved 
me and gave Himself for me,' and 

"'Who for all loss high recompense will give; 
Nor now unheeding marks our bitter smart 
When dies our project, that His plan may live.' " 

It has often occurred to me that if Christians 
would regard a little more the analogy of nature, 
they might be spared a vast deal of self-reproach 
that is quite unmerited. As it is, if permitted 
for once to render some blessed service to the 
Lord, forthwith the whole life is tested by that, 
and its subsequent uselessness deplored. But 
while Faber is right when he says, '' We do per- 
haps a tenth of the work for God which we might 
do," still God only requires the best of His trees 
to bring forth its fruit in its season. Once doing 
that, what matters it that for a whole year it can 
not repeat the act. It needs, and so God gives, 
that little space of rest; and oftenest too it needs 
to pass through a second year, in which it yields 
very little, but is gathering up its forces to be 



THE LIFE BEYOND. 189 



ready to yield much fruit again. If this plan be 
thwarted by artificial means, and the poor tree 
pressed into constant bearing, it soon sinks ex- 
hausted; as many a servant of God does, worn 
out before his time. 

A more real trial of faith is this: that the life- 
work at longest is so soon over; that at the mo- 
ment often when one seems fully trained and 
skilful, then he is set aside, and another less skil- 
ful takes up the work. Or on the other hand, 
however serviceable the work has seemed, yet 
the growth of wisdom puts it all to shame, so 
that one is tempted to regard it as utterly use- 
less. Improved methods of work, new ardor in 
the workers, and grand new successes, cast a 
suspicion of failure on all that has preceded 
them. Yet the poorer work may have been the 
sufficient scaffolding, and in ways we know not 
of, *'our failures are worked into the texture of 
the eternal plans, which can not fail and never 
falter." 

Meanwhile, as to our true place in the contin- 
uous work of the world, I think there is a most 
obvious lesson taught us in the successive circles 
of growth in a tree. Each has to give place for 
fresher life to enter; but always that which has 



190 GARDEN GRAITH. 



become effete in one way, acquires new power in 
another. It can never again repeat its work of 
conveying the nourishment, and so increasing 
the growth of the tree. But while in that sense 
it ceases to live, it is no less a portion of the liv- 
ing tree. It is a part henceforth of that tower of 
strength, of that column, which uplifts the fresher 
and tenderer growth. So all that God's power 
and love have wrought in past ages, is now our 
stay and strength, while He works anew in us for 
wider growth. Each generation counts one cir- 
cle in this living tree. Each of us counts one 
fibre. This continuity of life is a most precious 
thing to realize, whether it be as individuals look- 
ing back to our forefathers, or as the Church look- 
ing back through the long line of growth till we 
find Christ the beginning and the centre. The 
strength of the past is our strength. And as the 
work and responsibilities and perils of each suc- 
ceeding age in which the tree rises higher and 
higher, are sure to increase, so does God increase 
His grace, upholding us with more of His might, 
and nourishing us from wider sources. 

Little leaf up among the wild winds, trembling 
in thy weakness, and drooping with the fierce 
heat, fear not ! — Christ will keep thee green by 



THE LIFE BEYOXD. 191 



pouring' fresh currents of life into thy veins, and 
He will sustain thee by all that strength which 
He gave once to others, and now adds to thine. 
All that Christ has ever been for His whole 
Church, He is for thee — one man, one woman 
only, one leaf upon that tree. And it is thy 
blessed privilege, small as thou art, to be both 
ministered unto and to minister, so that the 
whole tree may make its increase with the in- 
crease of God. 

And now as we turn away our eyes at last 
from my withered garden, waiting for its new 
life — can we not also wait .'' and as we wait can 
we not rejoice } 

Yes, one at least rejoices. It seems to her so 
good and glorious to look thus to the life be- 
yond, that her heart is too full of praise to suffer 
it to be pent up in silence. She passes over to 
the organ, and setting free its utmost volume of 
rich sound, she bids it help her lift up the voice 
to the God of Hope who will hereafter so fully 
triumph over all death and sorrow: — 

"Hark Avhat a sound, and too divine for hearing, 
Stirs on the earth and trembles in the air! 
Is it the thunder of the Lord's appearing ? 
Is it the music of His people's prayer? 



192 GARDEN GRAITH. 



'Surely He cometh, and a thousand voices 

Sliout to the saints and to the deaf are dumb; 

Surely He cometh, and the earth rejoices 

Glad in His coming who hath sworn, I come. 

'This hath He done, and shall we not adore Him? 

This shall He do, and can we still despair? 
Come let us quickly fling ourselves before Him, 
Cast at His feet the burthen of our care, 

' Flash from our eyes the glow of our thanksgiving, 
Glad and regretful, confident and calm, 

Then through all life and what is after living 
Thrill to the tireless music of a psalm. 

*Yea, thro' life, death, thro' sorrow and thro' sinning 

He shall suffice me, for He hath sufficed : 
Christ is the end, for Christ was the beginning, 
Christ the beginning, for the end is Christ."* 



As heart and voice soared upward each eye was 
lifted also — and at that moment I saw what I 
had never so seen before. Above the organ 
hung a picture, a gift from the city of the golden 
gate. The massive frame held simply a large 
cross of the choicest abelone-shell, draped with 
the most exquisite of sea-weeds. Just then the 
light of the fully opened window streamed in 
upon it, lighting up the cross till it shone like 

* "St. Paul," by Frederick W. H. Myers. 



THE LIFE BEYOND. 193 



one of the pearl gates of heaven, while it brought 
out in the most distinct yet delicate relief every 
tissue of the fair frail ,sea flowers. I had always 
counted it among my treasures, but now its 
beauty and significance shone in a new light. 

Yes, God makes a garden for Himself in the 
very sea. " Whatsoever the Lord pleased that did 
He, in heaven, and in earth, m the sea, and in 
all deep placesT Down in those dark depths, 
away from all human sight, it pleased Him to 
create this marvel of beauty. The chill waves 
could not thwart Him as He built for the hum- 
blest of His creatures a house of pearl; and in 
the midst of the bitter brine, beating restlessly. 
He nourished these fragile flowers. 

How transfigured they look as they are lifted 
up upon the cross ! Yes, blessed Lord, Thy cross 
took Thee down into the deep, where all the bil- 
lows and the waves went over Thee. Thou 
couldst say as none other, ''Out of the depths 
have I cried unto Thee, O God." But now Thy 
cross is no more in the great darkness, but 
stands jewelled with light. It is no more in the 
depth, but highly exalted; and there is nothing 
so little, and nothing so hidden, that thou wilt 
not lift it up in triumph on Thy cross till it shine 



:94 GARDEN GRAITH. 



in Thy glory. Thy suffering is finished forever, 
but Thy redemptive reign is not yet ended. Thou 
art ''expecting," and we ^re ''waiting." Thou 
art ascended now, but what is it but that Thou 
didst first descend into the lower parts of the 
earth. Thou couldst go nowhere save to lead 
captivity captive; and when cometh the end then 
they that bow before Thee shall be " those in 
heaven, and those on earth, and those under the 
earth." Alike out of the depths of our anguish, 
and out of the depths of Thy universe, canst Thou 
bring the trophies of Thy dying love, and Thine 
all-sufficient sacrifice. Lord Jesus, what sudden 
light may yet flash upon the glory of Thy cross ! 
What poor despised things may yet be glorified 
together with Thee ! 

The last cadence of the song had long since 
died away; for what could one do but sit in a 
hushed silence, looking upward to that sun-light- 
ed cross ! And then once more, but very softly 
now, the simple melody went on: — 

"What can we do, o'er whom the imbeholden 

Hangs in a night with which we can not cope? 
What but look sunward, and with faces goiden 
Speak to each other softly of a hope? 



THE LIFE BEYOND. 195 



"Can it be true, the grace He is declaring? 
Oh let us trust Him, for His words are fair! 
Man, what is this, and why art thou despairing? 
God shall forgive thee all but thy despair." 

Dear friends, who have forgotten your sorrows 
in the consolations of Christ, I leave you there 
before that blessed vision, of which my picture 
is but the shadow — of the cross glorified and 
glorifying. 

*'Now the God of hope fill you with all joy 
and peace in believing, that ye may abound in 
hope through the power of the Holy Ghost." 



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